Perilous Danger
by Ai Tennshi
Summary: One day Conan comes home to find that Vermouth has visited Detective Mouri and all but given away his secret... So begins a web of intrigue and suspense.
1. Prologue

Author's Note: I doubt that there's anyone out there following all my stories since I have yet to post twice in the same category, so I suppose that all who read this will be new to me. This story started out in Japanese—I was going to write a story in Japanese about Ai's feelings for Conan, but it underwent a number of changes, and once it turned in to a sort of mystery/adventure type of story, I decided to do it in English. I doubt that there are many people out there who would read a long story in Japanese on this site. Sometimes I wish I knew French, or Spanish, or something used more in the west.

Anyway, this is something of my imagination working to formulate the end of Detective Conan. I don't have any of the books past 47, so I apologize if anything does not match with any books past that one.

This prologue is short, so I intend to wait to post it until the first chapter is finished. Hope you enjoy it!

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters, nor places mentioned in this story. The characters and places that do not exist in real life belong to Aoyama Gosho, and the real places no doubt belong to some rich person somewhere in Japan or to no one at all. This goes for the entire length of the story.

**Perilous Danger**

**Prologue**

"Professor!"

"Shinichi-kun… There really isn't anything that I can do. You're better at this sort of thing than I."

"But there must be something… Like, maybe on Chris Vinyard's fan site…!"

"Really, Kudo-kun," cut in a brown-haired girl, coming up the stairs from the underground laboratory. She went by the name of Haibara Ai, and her calm, collected demeanor was enough to tell anyone that she wasn't just any child. "You can't honestly expect someone like that, in an organization like that, to just put hints about a secret organization up on her website."

"But she does tend to like puzzles," Conan objected. "She enjoys a challenge—putting a large hint up right in front of us with the knowledge that we're ninety-nine percent sure to miss it. Come on, she was walking around in the open right in front of us for months! She'll be expecting us to go looking in the most obvious places now, and she's sure to leave some hints there."

"And you just said it yourself," retorted the brown-haired girl, crossing her arms over her chest. "They would be hints with a ninety-nine percent probability that you're going to miss. You're helpless against them, Kudo-kun."

"Haibara, you say that all the time! Honestly, you have more faith in them than you do me!" Ai raised an eyebrow at the boy known as Edogawa Conan, whose observation skills, knowledge, and quick mind also gave him away as not being just any child.

"Of course I do. After all, they've outsmarted you without fail until now, haven't they? And they plan their movements quite well, too." Conan gave the girl an exasperated look.

"Really, do you two always bicker like that? If it weren't for the topic of conversation, I would have thought that you were both the age that you look to be."

Spinning around at the unexpected voice, Conan and Ai found themselves facing a dark-skinned teenager, who looked to be about the age that Conan was supposed to be.

"Hattori? What are you doing here?" asked Conan in bewilderment.

"Well, I thought you'd be a bit happier to see me, Kudo," said the young man with a smirk. "I hear that you're in quite a bit of trouble."

"I've _been _in quite a bit of trouble for ages," retorted Conan with narrowed eyes.

"Well, now that this woman knows who you are, you're in more trouble than usual."

"She's _known _who I am for a very long time—remember that ghost ship you went on, disguised as me?" The dark skinned youth nodded in response. "The invitation and the envelope were addressed to Kudo Shinichi, but the letter was addressed to Edogawa Conan."

"Why is this, six months later, the first time that I've heard about this?" asked the youth indignantly. Conan rolled his eyes as though the answer was obvious.

"I didn't want you sticking your nose into my business, naturally."

The dark-skinned youth crossed his arms.

"I never stick my nose into your business, as you put it! I occasionally invite you to Osaka, and we solve mysteries together, but I never delve into your problems."

Conan gave a loud, clear snort that clearly said what he thought of that statement.

"Oh, don't be an idiot. When was one time that I got into your business?"

"Remember that time when you rashly decided to go and meet Jodie-sensei, just because she was foreign? Or the time after I was shot, at that school play, when you dressed up as me—and allow me to comment that your makeup was terrible and you didn't even bother to _try_ faking your accent—or that-"

"Oh, come on, Kudo! I was trying to help you!"

"And in the process sticking your nose into my business and getting me into deeper trouble than I already was."

"You're being ridiculous. Those things caused you no problems what so ever!"

"Apart from the terrible anxiety that I went through with each of your stunts, thinking that you'd give everything away in one wrong move? No, they didn't cause that much trouble."

"If anyone walked in at this particular moment, Hattori-kun would probably be arrested for child abuse," Ai commented lightly to the professor.

Professor Agasa frowned. The girl always did have a tendency to envision the worst.

"Ai-kun, you don't have to be so dark all the time…" The girl shot him a sharp look in response.

"I'm not dark," she said in a cool, calm voice. "I only speak the truth that everyone else seems to feel the need to gloss over.

"Hey, professor!" Hattori suddenly called, abruptly halting his argument with a surprised Conan. "Can I see the internet? I want to look at Chris Vinyard's website."

Conan rolled his eyes with an exasperated sigh.

"If you'd been listening, you may have heard that that's exactly what Haibara wanted me to _not _do!" he called, but was not surprised when his words met deaf ears. Actually, he corrected himself, Haibara had heard, judging by the way one of her eyebrows shot up and she fixed him with a look that clearly said, _oh, so _now_ you listen to me_. The youth at whom his words were directed, however, was already sitting on the chair before the computer, a confident, happy grin on his face. The professor, who had gone onto this particular website many times at Conan's request, showed the dark-skinned man how to navigate the site.

With a hopeless sigh, Conan walked out of the room, not really caring where he went as long as he was away from that annoying nuisance from Osaka that called himself a detective.

Passing by the bathroom, he paused and decided to use it. It was when he was glumly washing his hands, however, that he caught sight of his own reflection.

His heart leapt into his throat, and it was a moment before he even recognized his own face.

His cheeks were so thin that they were almost hollow from lack of food, there were bags under his eyes from lack of sleep, his glasses were gone, he was covered in small scrapes and cuts and he could almost swear that wrinkles were about to develop on the soft child's skin of his forehead from his constant anxiety. It was a wonder that Hattori hadn't commented on his appearance's resembling a zombie.

Then again, he thought to himself, the professor probably warned him before hand, and told him not to draw attention to this.

He smiled grimly down at his hands, watching the water rush over them. _To think that just three days of constant anxiety could do this to a child's body,_ he thought wryly. His eyes narrowed in sadness. His right hand reached up to stop the flow of water. Looking back up at his reflection, he marveled once more at the change that the short span of three days had brought upon his body.

_Then again, maybe I shouldn't be so surprised. It was bound to happen sooner or later._ He saw his mouth twitch at the corner.

Still staring at his transformed body, he looked back on the events that had brought this about…


	2. Perilous Revelation

**Perilous Danger**

Chapter 1:Perilous Revelation

"Where've you been, boy?" came the annoyed voice of Mouri Kogoro from the couch when Conan entered the office. "Supper's almost ready, but Ran says we'll have to wait for about ten more minutes."

"That's fine, Kogoro-ojisan," Conan replied, heading to the couch to sit down as well. He stopped, however, when he noticed that a large number of photos were scattered across the desk. His brow furrowing, Conan changed his course and walked towards the desk. "What are the photos on the desk?" he asked. Instantly, Kogoro's bad mood seemed to get ten times worse.

"I told Ran to get those out of here! Ran!" There was no response, and he turned with moodily to Conan, who was scrambling up onto the chair to get a better look. "Someone came today—she got photos of some men blackmailing some others. Apparently, they saw her, so the photos end abruptly where she had to run away. I can't do anything with only that much evidence! You can't even see the faces of the people in the photos clearly…" As Kogoro trailed off in a depressed tone of voice, Conan got his first good look of the photos. Instantly, his blood ran cold.

They were photos of Gin and Vodka with another man. They were almost exactly identical to what he had seen on the day that his body had been shrunk, except for the fact that they appeared to be in some sort of ruined building rather than an amusement park. Perhaps when the man came again, Conan could find out what they had been saying… Perhaps that would lead him to them!

"Conan? What is it? You're completely white!" Kogoro's voice knocked Conan back into the present. He looked up at him, faking a careless smile to the best of his ability.

"Sorry, ojisan, I just realized that I forgot to meet Ayumi, Mitsuhiko and Genta today—I'll just go and call them." Conan jumped off the chair and ran out the door and up the stairs, dialing his cell phone as he went.

"Hello?" came the cold voice on the other end when the rings stopped.

"Haibara, get the professor! I've got to talk to him!"

"I see that something quite important has come up. You were the one who told me that he'd be gone for a while, remember?"

"Oh, kuso(1)!"

"It's the Organization, isn't it?" A touch of worry had entered her voice, but it was so subtle that Conan failed to notice.

"What else?" replied Conan. There was a pause before Ai spoke again.

"What did you hear?"

"Someone came to occhan(2) with photos of a blackmailing scene. Gin, Vodka and another guy, presumably the guy being blackmailed, were in those photos."

"You mean to say that this person got away with that?" This time, the surprise that entered her voice was impossible to miss.

"Apparently. According to occhan, the woman was spotted half way through, and she ran for it."

"A woman? I can't believe it."

"Do you want come over and look at them? They're as real as anything!" Conan's annoyance was crystal clear, but Ai did not appear to be phased.

"This _must_ be a trap."

"What do you mean? You actually think that they would risk being exposed to catch me?"

"They know who you are and where you stay, remember? It's the same with me. You know much more about them than just blackmail. If you revealed what you know, they'd be in much deeper trouble than a few people knowing about blackmail."

"How would you know?"

"Kudo-kun! You're too excited at this revelation! Calm down and think for a moment. How many people who've witnessed blackmailing go running to private detectives instead of the police? Did you even ask what this woman looked like? I think that you know who I think it may have been."

She was right, Conan instantly knew. He took a few measured breaths, his eyes shut. When he opened his eyes, everything seemed much clearer.

"Thanks, Haibara. Tell the professor to call me as soon as he gets back." Conan switched off the phone before Ai could even reply.

Conan slid down the wall to sit on the floor. He had intended to discuss with the professor what the best course of action to take would be in this situation. However, since that was obviously out of the question, he was going to have to think up some other course of action. Sitting and waiting for the professor to return was something that he definitely didn't want to do.

Standing, he decided to go back downstairs and interrogate Kogoro—though he doubted that there would be anything else worth knowing.

"Supper's ready!" came Ran's announcement from the kitchen just as he was beginning to head down the stairs. Conan was just wondering if he should go down and call Kogoro in case he hadn't heard, when Kogoro came out of the downstairs room and began to moodily ascend the steps. His eyes were fixed on the floor, so he apparently failed to notice Conan. Shrugging to himself, Conan went back through the door, leaving it open for the man behind him.

As they ate their supper, they were consumed in silence. Usually they watched the television during supper, but today Kogoro's mood was so bad that neither Conan nor Ran wanted to do anything that could disturb him any further. Suddenly, when they were nearly finished, Kogoro's head snapped up to stare and Conan.

"Who are you?" he asked.

Conan's eyes widened in shock, and then his brow furrowed in confusion. What had brought about this question? Surely Kogoro wasn't intelligent enough to figure out Conan's secret on his own…

"C, come on, ojisan! You know who I am—Conan Edogawa!"

Detective Mouri's eyes narrowed sharply.

"That's not what I see. Whenever I can't solve a case, you say something that leads to the solution! You know much more than any boy of your age should be able to know! On top of that, now my clients seem to think that you know more than I!" Saying that much, he stood, slapped an envelope down on the table, and crossed his arms. "The woman who came today told me to give that to you. She said that you would understand entirely if I said a certain word to you." Conan, who had reached out and just picked up the envelope, looked up at Kogoro cautiously.

"What word?" He tried to make his voice sound like an innocently confused and curious child, but knew that his heart was beating too fast—the confusion and curiosity were there, but his voice sounded much more like a man who is dreading what he will hear than a little boy who has no idea what is happening.

"Vermouth."

Conan's eyes, narrowed in concentration and confusion, snapped wide open. He stared at Kogoro in disbelief.

"Are you sure?" All childishness forgotten, he asked his question in a sharp, serious voice.

"Positive," said Kogoro. All anger was gone from his demeanor, and he instead seemed completely startled at the change that the word had brought about in the child.

"What did she look like?" Conan was on his feet, and his hands trembled where they were placed flat on the table, one on top of the envelope. Ran watched him worriedly through her confusion and surprise.

"Well, she came with a large hat and sunglasses, but when she took them off, she looked familiar… A foreigner with blond hair and blue eyes, but those eyes were really extremely sharp…"

"Occhan, do you know Chris Vinyard?" Kogoro's eyes widened, forgetting to scold the boy for his lack of respect in address.

"Of course! That's who she reminded me of!"

"Conan-kun, what's wrong?" Ran finally spoke. At her words, Conan realized for the first time that his body was covered in sweat and that the trembling of his hands had increased. He picked up the envelope once again, and tried to cover up his actions.

"Wow, ojisan, it's amazing that such a famous actress came to you!" He inserted a small pause, and then widened his eyes in a faked realization. "Oh no! I promised the professor that I'd go there tonight! I'd better go now!" Before he could run out, however, Kogoro grabbed his arm. The suspicion was back in his eyes, stronger than ever.

"Oh no you don't. You'll sit here and tell us exactly what that letter says."

"Dad, don't do that! He's just a little boy!" Ran jumped up and tried to loosen her father's hand on Conan's arm.

"Ran, don't interfere. Something's happening, and this kid knows what it is. Now read that letter!"

Conan slowly sat as ordered, and slit open the envelope, knowing well that Ran and her father would read it over his shoulder. Knowing Vermouth, she would have addressed him as Shinichi Kudo on the inside. He opened the letter, taking as long as possible. To his relief, it was not so. He began to read slowly, trying to read ahead and hide the letter from the view of Ran and her father as he did so, for fear that something written there would give him away.

"My dearest Edogawa Conan," Conan began to read, only vaguely aware that his voice was hoarse and his heart was beating so rapidly that he could hardly breath, "if you have interrogated Detective Mouri already, as I am sure you have, then you will already know who I am. I dare say you must have been quite jumpy as of late, knowing that I had disappeared for the last six months. Now, there is something that I need to get—or rather someone—apart from yourself, of course. You know exactly who I am talking about."

Conan's voice faltered as he stared at the paper in disbelief. She actually expected to get Haibara through him? That was ridiculous!

Kogoro did not press him to continue. Though Conan had done his best to hide the note, he had still read some key words, and had the gist of the message. As he slowly recovered from his shock, he stared at the little boy, whose expression was nothing like that of a little boy at the present. Who was this boy, who was so mature for his age, and who received threatening notes despite his seeming insignificance, and young age of eight?

Ran's eyes narrowed. The expression on the boy's face was much too familiar to ignore. True, it was similar to the expression Conan wore when concentrating, but the panic and cold calculation blended in his expression, causing an old familiar face—yet not so familiar as of late—to leap before her eyes. _Shinichi…_

But Conan paid neither Detective Mouri nor the calculating Ran any heed as he reread the second half of the letter.

_Tell her that if she wishes you, and all others around her, such as the professor and the children, to remain as they are, then she would do well to do as I say: to go alone to Tokyo Tower on the night of the full moon at midnight. You are not to 'forget' to inform her, for I know where to find the person who you hold most dear._

XXX

Vermouth

Conan closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He calmed his racing heart, and then steeled his emotion. Thinking coldly and rationally, he made his decision. When he opened his eyes, there was a hard resolution filling those orbs that had not been there before.

"Conan-kun?" Ran asked cautiously, slightly nervous about using what she now was, once again, theorizing to be fake. The steel hard resolution in the boy's eyes faded, Kogoro noticed. Had it been deceivingly strong, that it should fade so easily?

No, he realized as the boy smiled up at Ran, assuring her that he was alright, but that he had to go and see the new game that the professor had made him. The resolution had faded from sight, but it was not gone. He had simply hidden it with practiced skill.

As he watched the boy run out of the apartment, a bright smile on his face, he was almost fooled himself—until he noticed that the boy had carefully tucked the note into his pocket.

'kuso' – this word is the Japanese equivalent of the word 'shit', although is used differently at times.

'occhan' – a not-too-polite way to refer to a man, usually older than and well-acquainted with oneself.

Author's Note: Not spectacular, I know. The plot is underdeveloped and not very engaging either. But if you want me to continue, review and tell me so. I'd be grateful for tips, ideas, comments, criticism… Anything. Like I said, the plot is underdeveloped—in other words, I only have a vague, blurry picture of the whole thing in my mind. It sort of makes itself up as it goes along. If I get seven positive reviews for this story, I'll continue it.


	3. Perilous Dance

Author's Note: You may notice that I've changed the title of the first chapter. I've been doing some editing of the prologue and the first chapter. A huge thank you to Shirafor for pointing out a major error of mine!

**Replies to reviews:**

**Shirafor** – I know… I was sort of testing the waters, so to speak. I always seem to underestimate the number of people willing to submit reviews… Thanks again—I'd completely forgotten about the footnotes! Oh yes, I need to remember to do the one for this chapter too, thanks for reminding me (grins—yes, I'm extremely forgetful). Don't worry, you'll find out what Conan's problem is (this chapter, with a span of only about half an hour, should be a good enough tip off), and almost everyone will come out in this story—I actually intend to shoot about ten birds with one stone by writing this. Just take lots of shapeless ideas that have been plaguing me and shape them into a story…

**Claude le noctambule** – Yes, actually Conan's quite stressed out in the prologue. He's gone through quite a bit of torture at that point (as you'll see in this chapter, which is only about half an hour or an hour out of the three days), and is kind of snappish. Your English is quite good, don't worry about it. I wish I knew French…

**xeno** – That gave me much more confidence! Slowly the plot's taking form… Slowly, but surely.

**SanaAkoSiKaitouKid** – That was quite reassuring for me… Thanks!

**Zizzy** – And I hope you like the way it's continuing… It's not all that pleasant if you look at it from Conan's point of view, but it isn't a 'dark' sort of fic either.

**Magick Dreamweaver **– (grins) Yeah, stories do come out well from time to time if you just let them go on without trying to force them in certain directions.

**Basser **– Yup, you're the seventh. Well, the plotline's developing, so it's not quite lightening speed (grins)… Yeah, I agree with you about the Japanese. It annoys me to no extent when people use too much of it. I only intend to use it in names, like you mentioned, and swearwords. It's strange—I refuse to swear at all in English, yet I swear in Japanese without a second thought…

**Perilous Danger**

Chapter 2:Perilous Dance

As soon as Conan was out of the building, he breathed a sigh of relief in the cool night air. He had been sure that Ran would chase after him, using her expert karate skills to stop him at all costs. Perhaps she had been too stunned. Or too confused. Yes, the latter was preferable.

Then again, if she was confused, he would be confronted with a stream of questions the moment he returned. Maybe he should stay at the professor's for a while and let the whole thing cool down at Ran's home. Then when he went back, things could return to normal.

His stomach rumbled. He had been so anxious about Vermouth during dinner that he had not eaten as much as he usually did. And in a child's body, that was not good. A child's body, as he had found, demanded much more attention than that of an adult. It needed longer hours of sleep and larger, more regular meals. Why a smaller body required more food than a large one still bewildered him. Then again, maybe it was just because he used to neglect his body so much when he was sixteen, caught up as he had been in mysteries.

He would go to the professor's, and there he would get a nice meal. The sun had already set in the time that he had been inside, too, so he could stay at the professor's house for the night. Food and sleep. Just the thought was enough to relieve him of some tension.

Conan began to walk down the street, turning his mind from his stomach to the problem at hand. His pounding heart had slowed, and the rush of blood had left his brain. Now he could think clearly.

He began to lay down the facts that were clear. Vermouth had visited Detective Mouri and hinted that there was something out of the ordinary about Conan. She had brought photos of blackmailing, though they were not good photos, making it impossible to tell whom the people were—unless one already knew them, of course. Gin's long blond hair was a dead giveaway to those who knew of him. She had handed him a letter to hand to the boy, rather than sending it to the house of Kudo Shinichi. She wanted Haibara, or Sherry, as she knew her. And all this after six months of nothing. Not a sign of Chris Vinyard, not a single word of strange activity that could be linked to the Organization, not a single reaction from Haibara, with her sharp sixth sense. Nothing at all.

Conan clenched his fists and quickened his pace. What on earth were they up to? He could not think of a single reason that would explain Vermouth's strange actions. Then again, she did things on whim, according to Haibara, and that was what made her all the more dangerous.

Suddenly, Conan felt the hairs at the back of his neck stand on end. His head snapping up, alert at once and all thoughtfulness gone from his demeanor, his sharp eyes swept the area for the distraction.

A trunk was coming hurtling down towards him.

Without giving it a single thought, Conan leapt out of the way, and the trunk fell with a crash onto the pavement of the sidewalk—exactly where he would have been standing if he had continued walking and remained unaware.

His eyes snapped up to the building beside him. With a glance at it, his eyes narrowed and he ran inside. Ignoring the surprised protests of shopkeepers, he bolted to the staircase meant for staff only and ran up the steps, heading for the roof.

It was a tall, plain, typical gray building made of cement. There were no balconies on the side facing the street: only one automatic sliding door to enter and leave the building, and small windows on all of the seven floors except for the first. This was to be expected, as though this was a busy street, the sidewalks were narrow, so balconies facing the street would not be practical; the first floor was a store and the top floors apartments, so the lack of windows only on the first floor was to be expected as well. There had been no sign of anyone in any of the windows, nor on the roof. The windows, however, were far too small for the trunk to have passed through: the trunk, therefore, must have been dropped from the roof. However, the darkness had prevented him from seeing whether anyone was there.

As he continued running up the stairs, he remembered to check his watch. A quarter passed seven. Upon reaching a door after passing the seventh floor, Conan threw it open and jumped out onto the roof.

As he had expected, there was no one there. It was a plain roof—walls about a meter tall on all sides enclosed a flat ground. There was nothing at all on that gray cement ground, with the exception of the small building in one corner that was the entrance to the only staircase that led up to the roof.

Conan walked to the side opposite the door and looked down. This side overlooked the street. Immediately below him, Conan could see the trunk on the sidewalk, illuminated by the streetlights. Narrowing his eyes and squinting, he saw the cracks in the sidewalk. He would have to check the contents of that when he got back down. But first, he had to focus on the person who had done the deed. He squinted once more down at the chest and turned from the wall, looking thoughtfully at the door.

Obviously, the man or woman who had done this had not escaped down the staff staircase—he would have seen them. This meant that they had gotten off at one floor and gone down the rest of the way by the residents' staircase.

One thing that struck him as strange, however, was the trunk. If it was heavy enough to make cracks in the sidewalk, it had to be extremely heavy. The wall on the side of the building was too thin to hold it steady, and he doubted that there was a person with enough strength to hold the trunk for a long period of time, just waiting for a certain target to pass by.

Conan's brow furrowed.

Had they been targeting him? How was he to know? For all he knew, it could be that someone had just wanted to kill someone, and was uncaring of that person's identity. Or they could have been targeting children…

_No,_ he thought. That last thought couldn't be right. If that were so, then the person would have attacked in the daylight, at a time when there were flocks of children walking down this road, either to or from school.

So _had_ they been targeting him? But the fact remained to be that they could not possibly be that accurate in dropping the trunk. It was simply too heavy to drop it on a certain person. Then had it simply been dropped from the roof in an attempt to get something downstairs that was too heavy to carry?

Conan snorted. A person would have to be out of their mind…

Then again, if the person were drunk and lived on the seventh floor, they might see it as being easier to get the trunk up to the roof than down seven floors. He doubted that this building had an elevator. And a drunk may forget that dropping something so heavy from the roof could result in serious injury…

Conan snorted.

What had he been thinking? Of course this wasn't some attempt to kill him. He was just being paranoid because of that letter from Vermouth. He felt like she would jump out of any corner at any moment. It was unreasonable, and had muddled his thinking.

There was a sudden gust of wind, and he heard a creak and then a slam behind him.

Practically jumping out of his skin, Conan wheeled around in horror, almost expecting to see Vermouth right behind him, a gun pointed at his head.

What he saw, however, was nothing more than a closed door to the staircase. His heart leapt into his mouth. Had he been locked out up here…?

His heart beating faster than ever, he ran back to the door. The doorknob turned in his hands, and he tried to pull the door open. There was a resistance. Was someone pulling from the other side?

With all his strength, he heaved. The door opened. There was nothing there but a dark staircase.

Conan breathed out slowly, his hand loosening on the doorknob.

_See? It's muddling your thinking._

The door had slammed shut because the wind had grown stronger. The resistance he met had been nothing but the wind.

Another hard gust of wind swept past him. His loosened grip on the doorknob slipped as the door was pushed backwards, this time opening further rather than closing.

As the knob slipped from his hands and the door gave a loud bang as it hit the wall, Conan's eyebrows rose.

_What was that?_ Had it just been his imagination again, or had his hand just touched something that was not metal, of the door or the doorknob?

The wind died down again as he pulled the door closed and looked at the outer doorknob.

It had not been his imagination. There was a piece of rope, tied tightly and securely around the base of the knob. It was hard to notice unless one already knew of its existence.

Conan looked closely at it. There was a visible difference between the two ends of the tight knot that kept it secure where it was. One end looked like any rope would, though it was quite frayed. The other end, shorter than the first, looked as though it had been pulled taught, and the edge was neat, as though it had been cut only recently. In fact, someone must have cut through it extremely recently, for even as Conan watched, the pieces of string woven together to create the rope were pulled apart by the wind.

Conan's eyes narrowed as a thought sprang into his mind: what if the person had tied a rope to the doorknob on one end and to the trunk on the other, and then thrown the trunk over the edge? If this were done, then the person would be able to drop the trunk on any single target by simply cutting the rope, so long as that target passed under the trunk. The conditions were ideal for such a trick, too—it was dark, but streetlights and light from buildings along the street made it easy to see anything on the street from the roof, though those same conditions prevented anyone from clearly seeing the roof from the street.

Frowning, he walked once more to the edge of the roof and looked down at the trunk. This time, as he squinted, he searched for something specific—a rope. And sure enough, there was something passing through the middle of the top of the trunk in either direction, though he could not see anything specific. However, he could surmise that those things were rope, probably wound around the trunk at least twice in either direction, and tied securely at the top.

His eyes then moved to the side of the building. He had not been walking immediately next to the building, which meant that there must be something that would hold an object away from the wall and more over the sidewalk…

_Ah._ A pipe sticking out of the wall, perhaps twenty centimeters in length, and approximately level with the floor of the roof. A full-grown man or woman would be able to reach down with a knife of some sort and cut the rope close to the knot on the trunk. Then, since they would have had to tie the rope extremely securely to the doorknob, they most likely would not waste time in untying it, but instead cut it close to the knot and take the rest of the rope.

Conan ran back down the stairs, taking the route that he was sure that the person would have taken. At the seventh floor, he opened the door to that floor rather than continue down the stairs. It opened at the end of a long hallway, with doors at regular intervals on either side. Conan ran down this hallway until he saw the residents' staircase on his left. He descended by this staircase to the first floor, where he exited from the residents' door—on the side opposite the street.

This door opened into a parking lot, though there were more bicycles parked than cars. All was silent. Conan checked his watch again and frowned. Three minutes had passed since he had reached the roof. That was plenty of time for the person to escape on some vehicle.

No, he realized with a jolt. The street was unusually quiet tonight. There had only been the occasional car whizzing by as Conan had stood up on the roof, and absolutely no sound from the back of the building. He took great pride in his observation skills, and did not doubt them in the least.

So the only logical conclusions were that the person lived in the building and had returned to his or her own room, was waiting to ambush him, or had walked away.

Walking through the parking lot, he began to cautiously inspect inside, between and under cars, his right hand never leaving the watch on his left wrist, ready to shoot should anyone jump out at him.

Abruptly, Conan's stomach growled again, this time more softly. Cursing his child's body, the boy shook his head and turned back to the door. He had yet to inspect two or three cars, but seeing as he had yet to find anything suspicious, he figured that there would be no harm in going back now. The person had not struck, and there was no solid evidence that they were even targeting Conan specifically.

He was getting tired and hungry again, and it didn't seem as though he would catch that person at any time soon.

As he was passing by the last two cars, a rumble started him. It was the sound of a starting engine. His eyes snapped to the car to his right just as it shot out of its parking spot.

Not bothering to think, he threw himself forwards, rolling out of the way as the car shot past him.

Conan expected the person, upon realizing that their plan had failed, to drive straight out of the parking lot.

The car's driver, however, appeared to have different ideas.

The car began to rapidly back up, turning as it did, and coming at him once more. Scrambling to his feet, Conan ran out of its way, his heart beating wildly. This person was absolutely determined to kill him.

The car kept coming at him, and he continued to dodge it, attempting to choose places that were most difficult to aim for with the car. The parking lot was not all that large, and if the car were to hit others, some residents of the building were sure to come out to see what the sound was.

The downside of Conan's strategy, however, was the fact that the cars were not parked that closely together. When he was between two cars, the driver of the attacking car—an extremely skilled driver, it appeared—would shoot into that spot after making minimal angle adjustments. He would get out of those dangerous positions by either squeezing between the head of a car on one side and the wall that surrounded the parking lot, or by jumping onto the head and running across it before ducking on the other side.

He knew that the car would be unable to attack him if he were to remain on top of a car, but he was rather reluctant to make that gamble—if the person had a gun, he would not be able to get down quickly enough.

At one point, he tried to hide among the bicycles. The driver, however, had drove right through them, crushing them under the car as it headed for Conan, who was forced to go back to dodging among the parked cars.

Occasionally, he could catch glimpses of the driver. The person in the car wore a baseball cap and a cold mask(1), therefore making it impossible for him to tell whether he even knew that person.

Eventually, however, he felt his breath running out. He darted into the narrowest gap between two cars, and as the car shot into that gap, he darted over the hood of the car to his right and ducked down on the other side. Instead of remaining there, however, he swiftly rolled under the car, where he curled up as small as he could in the middle, hoping that he would not be noticed. He heard the car leave the gap where he had previously been, moving around the car under which he was hiding, and then stop when the driver seemed to realize that Conan seemed to have disappeared.

Conan tried to calm his beating heart, but it was only speeding up. He had hardly been thinking as he was dodging the car. The only thing on his mind had been to keep from being run over, and to stay as far away as possible while still having a strategy. Thinking like that in such a panicking situation had left him with no ability to think of other things.

Now, however, with nothing to do but hide, while half his mind listened to the sound of the driver slowly driving the car around the parking lot and worried about being found, the other half analyzed the situation. As it did so, it became more frightened with each thought.

This person was most definitely attacking him specifically. Were it an unspecific murderer, then after a few failed attempts, the person would have driven away lest he or she be recognized, and found some other victim. Were it a drunk, the car would not move so accurately, weaving around the other vehicles. If this person were disturbed in the mind (insane, in other words) and murder-crazed, then rather than go around a car each time Conan did, the driver would have smashed through them.

No, this person specifically wanted to kill Conan. But Conan had absolutely no link to this building, and had never been in this parking lot before. Yet, this person had known that Conan would come here. This meant that not only was this person either the one who had dropped the trunk or in league with the one who had done so, they also knew his personality well. They knew that Conan would not run from the trunk, but rather investigate. And the person who had dropped the trunk had known that Conan would be passing by that building at such a late hour, when most children would either be finishing supper or homework, or getting ready for bed. This person had known that something would happen at a late hour to make him leave the office of Detective Mouri and head to the house of Professor Agasa.

This person knew that Conan would investigate anything strange that came his way. This person knew that when something was urgent, Conan would rush to Professor Agasa. This person knew that Detective Mouri would sulk for a while before giving Conan the note. This person knew that Vermouth had given Conan an upsetting note.

_This person was in league with Vermouth._

Conan's pulse was now racing out of control. Vermouth was the ruthless type—she would have no qualms in killing him. She would have no qualms in killing _anyone_.

Yet she had waited for six months. She was up to something more ruthless than usual, of that he was sure.

_Then again,_ he thought with a wry, if slightly panicked, smile, _she's never outright tried to kill me._

As he had been thinking, he had heard the driver leave the car and walk about the parking lot. The driver had gone down to the other side of the parking lot, but he could hear her coming back. It sounded as though she was heading straight for him, and the thought sent his almost-calmed heart racing again.

The footsteps came closer…closer…but just as he thought that they were coming right for his car, they stopped and headed back.

His heart calming, he heard an engine start, and then the car leaving the parking lot. When he could no longer hear the engine, he cautiously rolled out from under the car. He straightened with even more caution.

When nothing happened, he walked to the parking lot entrance, located on a narrow street. He contemplated whether to follow the car or go back to the professor's as he had originally planned, finally deciding on the latter. He had the car's license number, which should be of some help, even if the car had been stolen.

He turned and began to walk back to the building.

"Leaving already? Have you lost interest?"

(1) 'cold mask' – held by elastics around the ears, this is a white rectangular multi-layered mask that people will wear over their nose and mouth when they have colds in the East.

Author's Note: Okay, now that the plotline's developing more, I can write longer chapters. I know, this one isn't all that long, but I'm working on making them longer. Seven more reviews for the next chapter!


	4. Perilous Forest

**Perilous Danger**

**Chapter 3:Perilous Forest**

Spinning around, Conan froze.

That one moment, however, was all that the man (for Conan could only assume that it was a man) needed. Before he knew what was happening, a large cloth bag had been shoved over his small body, and then he was thrown upside down as the man swiftly closed and lifted the bag.

With all his weight on the back of his neck, Conan was scarcely able to breathe. Shifting, he had only just managed to position himself so that his weight was on his back when the bag was jiggled fiercely.

"Don't get too comfortable in there," said a voice that confirmed that his captor was, indeed, a man. That voice, however, chilled Conan to the bones, and it took only a second for him to realize why it was so. "I know about that watch of yours; and those shoes, too. Of course, there's the bowtie too, but that wouldn't be of much help to you in this situation, would it?" There was a blood-chilling chuckle as the man jiggled the bag once again, just as Conan thought that he had gotten himself into a better position. "The shoes will be of no effect against this cloth," the man continued, "especially since you don't have any way of swinging your foot very hard. As for the watch…we've made sure that this bag is thick enough to withstand that."

Conan could not process the man's words, much less think: his head was pounding from the blood that was rushing in and the lack of oxygen in his body as the sharp curve of his neck narrowed his trachea. Time meant nothing—he was struggling with every second, trying to breathe and endure the pain in his head. He would attempt to shift position subtly, but every time was stopped by the man, who would jiggle, toss or flip the bag, somehow always managing to put Conan in a position even less comfortable than the last.

Finally, he ceased struggling, gritted his teeth and endured it. No sooner had he started this, however, then he felt himself being swung through the air, and then landing with a painful thump on something hard.

Gasping to catch his breath, it was a moment before his mind registered the slamming sound that had sounded directly above him. He was in a car trunk.

As his pulse slowed and his mind calmed, he regained his ability to think. With that, the sense of dread returned.

The man had been wearing a mask with a wide quarter-moon-shaped smile and two eyes of similar shape, only smaller and upside down, black hair cut evenly slightly above the shoulders, a top hat, a dark blue tuxedo and a matching cape—the Knight Baron.

The Knight Baron was a character invented by Conan's (or rather Shinichi's) father, Kudo Yusaku, a world-famous mystery author. Somehow, the Knight Baron seemed to have a tendency to pop up in all sorts of places—his mother, Kudo Yukiko, had been given the name of Knight Baroness, and there had been a number of cases involving a person dressed as the Knight Baron. However, that was not what was bothering Conan.

About ten months ago, Kudo Yusaku had come to Japan from the United States and dressed as the Knight Baron, pretending to be a member of the Black Organization. He had been assisted by Yukiko and Professor Agasa. His aim, in the end, had been for Shinichi to understand the danger of his own position. So, when Conan realized that the Knight Baron was attacking him again, and in connection with the Black Organization, that occurrence had sprung into his mind. In addition, the man's voice was eerily similar to that of Conan's father.

For a moment, Conan wondered if that was what was happening again. His mother could have disguised herself to look similar to Chris Vinyard, disguised Yusaku as Gin and the professor as Vodka and had someone else (most likely Hattori Heiji, the Detective of the West, who knew Conan's secret as well) be the remaining person in the photos. Then she could have gone to Detective Mouri, and left the note. Yusaku would have been the one to drop the trunk, and Yukiko the one to drive the car.

However, Conan discarded that idea almost as soon as it entered his mind. His parents had already done that once, and at the time the Organization had known nothing of his status or current identity. Now, though Chris Vinyard appeared to be the only one aware of that, she was also probably one of the most dangerous members of the Organization. No matter how fun-loving Yusaku and Yukiko were, they would never put Conan in such a position now. They would not have tried to kill him either, and Conan had no doubt that the person who dropped the trunk from the roof and drove the car in the parking lot had wanted to kill him. He had had too many close calls for it to be a simple trick.

He felt the vibration of the car's engine as it started up and the car began to move swiftly.

In the darkness that enveloped him, Conan groped around the inside of the bag, attempting to find a way out. He slowly followed the bag in one direction, sliding his hands one over the other on the material of the bag. He could feel that as he did so, he was moving around the trunk. That thought was confirmed shortly after it entered his mind, when his head slammed into something hard.

In surprise and pain, Conan's hands left the material of the bag and flew to his head. He was fortunate that he had not been moving that quickly, but unfortunately, it appeared that the car had swerved at that exact moment, causing the impact to be stronger than it would have been otherwise. How was it that those people could cause him so much pain without seeing him? First there was the man's jiggling of the bag, and now the movements of the car. When he was in the bag, it was simple. The man would have been able to feel him moving inside the bag, no matter how careful he had been. But how did they know what he was doing in the trunk?

Conan shook his head in annoyance. It was just a coincidence—nothing more. He was just over-paranoid.

Returning to the task of getting out of the bag, the seventeen-year-old moved his seven-year-old body even more carefully than before. He felt carefully first in one direction, then another. The bag was probably made of leather, he decided as he slowly moved his hands over the thick, hard, smooth material. There was nothing but more bag to his left; same to his right; again, same to the front; turning, he found the same to his back; the same diagonally left and right to the front; again diagonally right and left to the back; nothing above him either.

Frustrated, Conan slammed a fist into the floor. However, just as his fist touched the ground below him, he froze and looked down. His fist had touched the same material, but there had been creases in it. Much more creases than any of the other places he had felt. Excited, he shifted to the side. Just as he did so, the car swerved again, and the back of his head hit the side of the trunk.

Clutching his head, he cursed. _How_ did they _do_ that? Conan could not force himself to think that it was nothing more than a consequence this time. That was only reinforced when, as he struggled back up from the uncomfortable position he had been lying in, the car swerved again, throwing him so that he hit the roof of his dark prison.

Lying on his side with one leg under him and the other stretched out in front of him as his hands clutched his head, Conan refrained from moving this time. He desperately wanted to get out of that bag, and then the trunk, and he would not achieve that if he kept moving and getting himself thrown around.

He slowly moved his hands along the material of the bag, eventually finding the creased area again, diagonally above him to the right. He moved his hands around that area, and finally found the place where it caved outwards—the bag's opening. Holding onto that as tightly as he could, Conan cautiously sat up.

Almost instantly, he was thrown to the side once more. However, this time he had held securely onto the bag's opening, and somehow managed to be sitting up when he stopped. He pulled the material apart slowly, unsure of what he would find. He was sure that it was sealed in some way, although he was unsure of how.

As the bag slowly opened, he heard a slight sound. Stopping his hands' movement, he listened. All was silent, apart from the rumbling of the car's engine. He began to ease the bag open once more, and heard the sound again. It was a cracking sort of sound.

Conan grinned to himself.

The bag was sealed with velcro, which meant that he could open it from the inside.

Moving slowly, so as not to alert his captors to what he was doing, Conan continued to pull the bag open until there was enough room for him to get out. When inching out of the bag, he was still slow and cautious.

Once he was out, he sat on the bag and breathed a sigh of relief. Now that he was out, he realized that he could hear the men talking, though it was impossible to hear what they were saying. Hoping that the fact that they were talking meant that they weren't paying too much attention to him, he cautiously looked around the tight space where he was trapped. As his eyes carefully scanned and squinted in the darkness, a flashing red light in a corner caught his eye.

Conan closed his eyes, listening. When he heard a voice rise in volume, he decided to hope that they were distracted enough not to notice him. Swiftly crawling to that corner, he saw by means of the flashing light that it was a video camera. The flashing light was the signal that it was taping. He looked at it closely, and upon finding the off button, pressed it. The light stopped flashing. Just to be cautious, he also undid the tape that held it securely to the trunk roof. He then felt his way back to the bag and deposited the camera into that.

With that finished, he looked at his cage—though he really could not see anything, for no light filtered in through any cracks. Knowing that this meant that the trunk was closed completely, Conan tried pushing up on the ceiling anyway. It didn't open.

He frowned for a moment in contemplation, and then lay on his back as he activated his right shoe. Holding himself up with his arms and left leg, he positioned his body half way between the ground and ceiling. He carefully pulled his right foot back as far as it would go, and then kicked as hard as he could.

Despite the fact that he had set his shoe to the strongest strength, the impact was much less than what he had expected. Puzzled, Conan reached up and felt the ceiling carefully. When he could feel no more than one, maybe two, layers of cloth before the hard material of the trunk, he frowned in confusion. That could not be enough padding. Remembering how his head had hurt upon its contact with the inside of the trunk, he could only conclude that there was not a great amount of padding.

As he wondered what was happening, he noticed that his head was beginning to cloud again. Turning his focus to the rest of his body, he realized that he was taking quick, short breaths. He tried breathing in deeply, and found that he couldn't. It was a moment before he understood what was happening.

They had closed the trunk completely, and there was no way for air to go in and out of it. He was running out of oxygen.

He forced himself not to panic and take action. Removing his coat and placing it where he could find it, Conan removed his suspenders. Fastening one side to the cloth of the ceiling and another side to the floor, he made sure that the side on the floor was more secure than the side on the ceiling. Then he felt along the material for the button. As he pressed it, he felt his head beginning to swim.

There was a ripping sound, and he felt the ceiling. It was rough, yet smooth at the same time, and he took longer than usual to realize that it was wood. He tried to fasten his suspenders to it before realizing that he couldn't connect them to wood.

Conan shook his head to clear it, and only succeeded in giving himself a headache. Reaching up, he shoved his fingers between boards and began to tug. As his attempts failed, he panicked. He tugged with all his might, and yet the board would not budge. He continued to pull, his panic rapidly escalating.

He felt his blood shooting through his veins at an amazing rate as his heart pounded unnaturally rapidly. He felt adrenaline coursing through his body. He felt the sweat run through his hair and down his neck. Above all, he felt the pounding of his head and the lack of air in his lungs.

Suddenly, accompanied by a loud sound, the board came off, revealing more cloth. Conan fastened his suspenders to the cloth again and pressed the button, ripping it off to reveal more cloth. He set it up again, and continued to rip and refasten it until the cloth on the floor ripped rather than that on the top. He refastened the bottom securely on another part of the trunk's floor, and resumed the task of removing the cloth from above him.

Finally, when he reached up to refasten his suspenders again, he touched cold metal. His head still swimming, he adjusted the dial on his right shoe again, and not bothering to adjust his position to one ideal for kicking, shot his foot up at the patch of metal. There was a dull metallic sound, and he barely registered the dent he had made. He did not register the pain that rushed through his foot at all.

However, he could tell that in kicking, he had used a great amount of the little air that was left. So he began to pound with his fist. But as he did so, he felt his eyes begin to close. Forcing them open, he adjusted the dial on his right shoe again, once more on high, and using as much strength as he could muster, shot another kick at the ceiling. As he did this, he felt the remaining air rush out of his lungs. His will to keep himself awake was failing…

But then his body was jerked forwards. He heard dull sounds, but paid them no heed as he struggled to keep himself conscious. Then there was another dull thumping sound accompanied by a slight light, and a second later, he could breathe again. Taking deep breaths, Conan snatched back control of his mind.

The car had stopped, and the first dull sounds, no doubt, were the doors being opened, while the second was the trunk being unlocked so that it opened a fraction. Sure enough, a moment later, footsteps stopped very near him and breathing became even easier as light seemed to flood the darkness.

Conan barely had time to see that they were on a small side road with the occasional streetlamp on one side, and a dark grove of trees on the other before the man (if it was a man) wearing the cold mask snatched him up by the ankle.

"I thought you said that you'd taken care of him!" Through his surprise at hearing the person speak in English rather than Japanese, Conan noted that it could have been a man with a relatively high voice or a woman with a relatively low one.

Though his view was upside down, Conan saw the man dressed as the Knight Baron walk around the side of the car.

"I did. I padded the inside of the trunk, and closed it so he should have passed out…" This, too, was said in English, but once more, Conan felt his head beginning to swim as blood rushed to his head, lead by gravity.

"Well, it apparently didn't work. Here he is, entirely conscious, there's a huge dent in the trunk, and he ripped right through your padding. Next time, _I'm_ making the preparations." As subtly as he could, Conan reached upwards for his right shoe, thankful that he was being held by the left foot.

"And what would _you _have done differently, may I ask?" Conan twisted the knob, setting it on high.

"For one thing, _I _never would have-"

But the captor could not complete his sentence, for Conan swung his right foot at his arm. Hastily, the man in the cold mask recoiled, dropping Conan. Ignoring the pain that rushed through his back at his impact with the ground, the boy sprang to his feet and darted into the grove of trees. Behind him, he heard angry voices, but paid them no heed as he concentrated on putting as much distance between himself and his captors as possible.

As Conan continued to run, he realized that this grove of trees was actually more of a forest. Soon the light of the streetlamps was so far back that they gave him no more light, and he could only rely on the moon and stars through the trees' branches, bare now that it was winter. This, however, was not much at all, and he frequently fell and scratched himself on thorns and other sharp parts of the underbrush. All the boy knew was that he had to get out of there somehow. In the woods, with the dead leaves covering the ground, his pursuers most definitely would be able to hear him.

Stopping, he listened for the people behind him. When he heard the crunching of leaves not too far behind him, his heard sank.

Hastily, he grabbed one of the speakers that he kept on his button, and stuck it to the trunk of the tree beside him before running off once more. He knew that his pursuers had heard him, for the sound of footsteps sped up behind him only moments after he did so.

Conan continued to run, looking desperately for a tree with limbs low enough for his short body to climb. However, he appeared to have entered a grove of pine trees, and he doubted that he could have climbed them even if he had been in his true body. Thinking back, he remembered that the beginning area of the woods had had trees with lower branches. Turning slightly to the left, he decided to attempt making a large loop through the woods. As he ran, he fumbled with his bowtie, adjusting it to his own voice.

"Help!" he called into it. But he heard nothing except his own voice. "Chikushou(1)!" he cursed under his breath. He had intended to wait until his captors were close to the tree, and then lure them away with the voice from the speaker. However, it appeared that he had come too far. He had already turned back, so if he couldn't hear the voice from the speaker, his pursuers most certainly could not either.

He was beginning to think that he could not possibly run any more when he found the trees with lower branches. He had been looking at his feet, trying to keep himself going, and looked up for a breath of fresh air when he saw a branch right in front of him. Ducking at the last minute as he continued to run, it was a moment before the significance struck him. Relieved, Conan stopped and pulled himself onto one of the branches of the tree beside him. As soon as he felt that he was high enough, he pulled back his bowtie.

"Ouch!" Conan shouted into the bowtie. To his relief, he heard his voice from somewhere below him. He was about to sit back and wait when his eyes widened. _Below_ him? He looked down, but it was impossible to see much of the ground, much less a tiny speaker on a tree trunk. Activating his glasses, he thanked the professor for recently adding tracker devices to all of the speakers.

_Just as long as I'm not in the tree that has the speaker…_ he thought to himself, but then had to swallow a stream of curses when the glasses showed a green light in the very center. He zoomed in, but even at the very closest, the green light was only a few centimeters to his right—where the trunk of his tree was.

This time, Conan did allow a few curses to escape under his breath. When he heard the sound of crunching leaves approaching rapidly, dangerously close, he cut himself off abruptly.

He could not see the two in the shadows of the trees apart from the occasional flutter in a beam of moonlight, so he was almost entirely dependant on his ears. The two approached cautiously, he judged by their calculatingly slow footsteps, which stopped directly beneath his tree.

_What? How do they know that it's this tree? They don't have flashlights…_

But for once, it appeared that it was only coincidence, for the footsteps soon started up again, walking away from the tree. And then they returned, and Conan heard their voices.

"I'm sure that it was around here somewhere…" It was the voice of the man with the cold mask.

"Are you sure? You could be wrong." The Knight Baron.

"I'm very sure. If you think that it was somewhere else, you're free to go and search there." The man in the cold mask spoke in a crisp, annoyed tone.

There was a pause, and then Conan heard the Knight Baron give an audible grumble of "women!" and raised an eyebrow in surprise. So the one with the cold mask was a woman after all.

Looking up, it suddenly struck Conan that if they were to look up, they would see him instantly—there were hardly any branches between him and the cloudless moonlit sky. Keeping his movements at the minimum, Conan searched for a way off the tree that wasn't down. But there was nothing that he could see. Feeling desperate, he looked down. The two had stopped arguing, and it sounded as though they had split up. Conan noticed that if they came between trees, he could see them faintly. However, a branch of the tree beside his obscured his view. Just as he turned to glare at that branch, an idea struck him. He swiftly moved to take off his coat in order to reach his suspenders…when he realized that he had left both his jacket and suspenders in the car trunk.

Conan looked at the branch, and then looked down, where his pursuers showed no sign of going far enough that he could climb down the tree. He looked back at the branch with a steady gaze, his mind made up. He carefully reached out and tested the branch. It did not budge with his strength. Carefully, he let his feet leave the branch where he previously sat and transferred his weight to his arms, supporting him on the branch that had been obscuring his view. His body swung down and hung below the branch that he held. He felt something slide down his nose and fall, but paid it no heed. Taking a deep breath to calm himself, he began moving his hands so that he slowly inched along the branch towards the trunk. However, he had not anticipated the thickening of the branch, and soon his hands could no longer hold it firmly. Left with no other choice, Conan began to swing himself—forward, backward, forward, backward—until he had enough momentum to pull himself up. When he was hanging on the branch by his waist, bent over the branch to hold him securely, as well as his hands, he carefully brought one leg up so that he was sitting with one leg on each side of the branch. Heaving a soft sigh of relief that he had accomplished all this in silence, he began to scoot himself along the branch, inch by inch, until he had reached the trunk.

Upon reaching the trunk, he searched for an ideal branch to climb to. Finding none but the one that he had just come from, he looked at the tree that he was now on. The closest branch was about fifty centimeters below him, but was on the other side of the trunk. This time, he didn't bother thinking about the risk involved. He wrapped his arms around the tree trunk and kicked off the side of the branch so that he turned. But he did not turn enough—he only went half the way around to the other side of the trunk. Even so, Conan paid that failure no heed as he reached out with his right foot for the branch, found it, and put his weight on it.

Then his cell phone rang.

Conan hurriedly reached into his pocket and pressed the off button. He could hear his pursuers halt and head towards the tree he was now in. He could not resist pounding his head against the tree trunk.

_Why me? I witness one crime, just _one_, and it causes a lifetimes' worth of trouble. Besides which it's_ -Conan paused his thoughts to glance at his watch before continuing his mental rant- _a quarter to nine. What kind of person calls a second grader at this time?_ Promptly his cell phone rang again. Ready this time, he pressed the talk button before his pursuers could hear the ringing.

"_Yes?_" he hissed angrily, making sure that his voice was still soft enough to be mistaken for the breeze.

"Hey, Kudo!" came the enthusiastic voice from the other end of the line. "Why did you hang up on me a moment ago? Never mind; doesn't matter. I was just thinking, and I had this great idea—New Year's coming up, right? Why don't we-" Finally controlling his bubbling anger, Conan cut him off, restraining his urge to scream and forcing himself to settle for another hiss.

"Hattori. I am _busy_. I've told you to call the _office_. Call back in the morning if it's so important." He hung up without giving the young man a chance to reply, and then turned off his phone, which he returned to his pocket. His pursuers were now at the bottom of the tree. He could not risk retracing his steps—they would see the movement.

Silently calling Heiji every foul name that he could think of, he stood stock still, pressed against the trunk, paying no attention to what the two pursuers were saying below him. But then one sentence penetrated his thoughts.

"It could be a trick—he could have left his cell phone in the tree and called it by one of his gadgets to get us off track." It was the man's voice.

_That's a _brilliant_ idea!_ Grabbing his cell phone from his pocket, he turned it on once more just as the two at the bottom of the tree began to shake it.

He dropped it, carefully aiming for the woman's head, and was rewarded with an "ow!" a second later. He vaguely saw a shape lean down.

"See? A cell phone. I told you that it was a trap. Now we've lost him altogether!"

"Are you suggesting that it's my fault?" As they continued to argue angrily, the footsteps started again, and they and their voices got quieter as they walked off. Conan breathed a sigh of relief. As he waited for a while, just to make sure that they were gone, he felt a sudden shiver run through his body, and became aware for the first time how cold it was. With the sweat that had accumulated from both his physical activity and panic, it was even colder. Even so, Conan did not dare to climb down, and remained silently shivering in the tree for an endless half hour.

When he finally climbed down, certain that his pursuers were truly gone, it occurred to him for the first time that he had absolutely no idea which way to go. He was cold without his jacket, he could not look for lights from the top of a tall tree without his suspenders, and he could not call anyone without his cell phone, which the man and woman appeared to have taken with them.

Standing only made him feel colder, so Conan began to walk in a random direction. It suddenly occurred to him that it had been a very bad idea to throw away his cell phone—the professor was going to call when he got home, and he had said that he would be getting back around nine. It was now nine twenty, which meant that the professor had probably talked with the Knight Baron and the mask woman.

_On the other hand,_ thought Conan, perking up,_ that meant that the professor probably knows that I'm in trouble, in which case he just has to follow the tracker in my glasses-_ Conan froze. Now that he came to think of it… He reached up to feel his face and cursed.

His glasses were gone.

_Probably fell off when I was going from branch to branch._ Of course, there were the trackers that he kept stuck to his buttons, but those were there so that he could stick them to things. If the professor looked in the extra pair of glasses and saw the trackers and the glasses in separate places, he would follow the glasses rather than the trackers. _But all the trackers are together! He wouldn't follow glasses that aren't moving when all the trackers are together in one place and moving!_

Optimistic once again, Conan resumed walking. Then he stopped again. _Or, now that it's safe, I could go back and try and find the glasses. Wasn't there something in the glasses that would let me contact Haibara, even if the professor isn't back yet?_

He turned back, his mind made up to search for his glasses. In addition to allowing the professor and Haibara to contact and find him, it would provide a compass that could help him out of the woods. He walked among the trees, searching for the speaker that was on one tree trunk, level with his shoulders. However, the trees all looked identical in the darkness, and his only hope of finding the speaker was the chance that it would glint in the moonlight, but if his pursuers had seen no such glint, then it was unlikely that he would, either.

He carefully felt around each tree, looking for a glint at the same time. He was very careful so as not to lose his direction, sure that if he kept going in a straight line, he would eventually find it. After circling a little over ten trees, Conan lifted his bowtie.

"Ah…" As he made a sound into the bowtie, he heard an identical sound coming from somewhere to his left, sounding quite close. He continued whispering and mumbling into his bowtie and following the sound as he did so.

_Crunch._

The noise caused Conan to stop in his tracks. Walking over the leaves, every step he took made a crunching sound, but this was a different sort of crunch. It was crisper; more solid. Carefully crouching, he groped in the darkness of his own shadow for something other than leaves.

His hand touched something cool—glass, metal or plastic. A sudden dread ran through Conan as he lifted the small piece out of his and the trees' shadows and held it up to the moonlight. It was about five centimeters in length, and one end was narrow while the other widened and ended in a bulb sort of shape. It curved at about four centimeters, nearer the broken narrow end.

Conan instantly knew what it was. The next moment he was back on his knees, picking up as many pieces of similar texture as he could find by sense of touch. A number of the pieces were quite sharp, and scraped his hand as it felt around in the darkness. He knew that he must have a number of cuts on his right hand, which was feeling for the pieces, but ignored it. He was already cold, and kneeling on the ground feeling around on the cold earth was doing nothing to improve that.

When he was sure that he had found all the larger pieces, he did not bother for more of the small ones. Searching his surroundings with his eyes, he sought out an area where the trees appeared to be thinner. Walking in that direction, he continued looking around in the hope that he might find a clearing. When he did not, he settled for a place where the moon seemed brighter.

Looking down at the objects in his hands, he found that he could see nothing. He moved them forward so that they left his shadow, but he still could see nothing. Brow furrowed, he looked up. Clouds had come in front of the moon.

Too tired to curse or complain, physically or mentally, he settled his back against a tree and waited for the moon to come out again. As he sat, watching the sky, he felt drowsiness approach. The sky was beautiful when away from the city, he realized. _I never really do admire the beauty in things, do I?_ he thought to himself as he felt sleep approaching and his eyelids grew heavy and began to close.

Then the clouds slowly slid away, allowing him a little sight once more. Conan's eyes snapped open the instant the moon began to reveal itself once more, though it was a moment before he remembered why he had wanted the moon to come out. Standing, he stepped out of the trees' shadows and turned so that the objects were not hidden by his shadow, either.

His eyes narrowed, and what drowsiness had been left in him slipped away in an instant.

In his hand he held pieces of glass that could have once been two round-edged pieces as well as pieces of metal that were obviously once a glasses frame. However, Conan had been expecting this much. What caught his attention was the fact that the frame was in five pieces. Made of metal, the only way that it could have broken into five pieces by being stepped on would be if both arms had broken off, and then the pieces around the glass and the piece for the nose were glued together and had come apart. However, Conan's glasses were not made that way, and the arms were broken in the middle and the pieces surrounding the frame were broken in the middle as well—exactly what stopped the glasses from functioning and prevented any effort at repairing them. In addition, the cuts, though not straight, were relatively neat—a sign that they had been deliberately cut.

His two pursuers had had no time to do such a thing without his own knowledge between the time when his glasses had fallen and they had walked away. He was also sure that no one could have snuck around there while he was waiting to see if the man and woman would return. The only opportunity would have been when he had walked away from the area. Whoever had done it would have had only a brief opportunity—and they would have had to know that that was an opportunity, which meant that they would have had to know where he was. It could not be the man and woman who were pursuing him—of that he was sure.

A chill ran up Conan's spine. He was in the worst possible situation. He was cold with no shelter, hungry with no food, tired with no way to sleep, and lost in a forest that was apparently quite large with no idea where he was or how to get out.

And there was someone spying on him—no doubt watching him at that very moment.

(1) chikusho - literally translates to 'beast', so it could mean a 'dumb animal' or a 'brute'. But in this case, this is simply used as a swearword, and the meaning is entirely out of context. However, that is how this word is generally used as a swearword: out of context.

**Replies to reviews:**

**Claude le noctambule **– (grins) Don't worry, all your questions will be answered…eventually. I took your advice and moved the reviews to the bottom… (smiles sheepishly) I didn't quite get seven reviews, but oh well…

**Basser** – The only reason I speak both languages fluently is because I learned both English and Japanese the normal way—as in, just naturally. I was quite young when I moved to Japan, which accounts for that…

**Shirafor** – Once I start writing, I can do lots at a time. For example, my main hobby is translating (both from English to Japanese and from Japanese to English) and at one point, I got so into it that I finished translating an entire book in a month. The sad thing is, the author wouldn't let me publish it because of the procedure—she said the European/American publisher gets to choose the translater, so even though I've translated two books in her series, it counts for nothing. …Okay, sorry for rambling, back to replying. I hope you liked this chapter… Though the prologue tells you that Conan survives at least three days (smirks).

**Magick Dreamweaver** – I hope you stay with it until the end… It might get a bit tedious—at the moment it's moving at the pace of a snail.

**Meril** – Thanks!

**DeafLizgon** – I think most people would have expected Vermouth… What I did may have made it slightly anti-climatic, but it was sort of necessary for the sake of the plot. Then again, you don't know who those people are, so it might not be that bad.

Author's Note: As anyone who read my profile after April 19th would know, I have been on vacation. Since I could write, but not post during that time, I said that I would update when I returned, and that the chapter's length would be relative to the number of reviews I received during that time with 1000 words per review. Since I received 6 reviews, this chapter is approximately 6000 words long.

_If I get 7 reviews, my next update will be at least 7000 words long. So review!_


	5. Perilous Personage

__

Author's Note: I apologize sincerely for the long wait. I was wrapped up in other things, and couldn't find the motivation to write this chapter for a while. But here it is! Ran's story starts here, too. Enjoy!

**Perilous Danger**

**Chapter 4:Perilous Personage**

Mouri Ran's eyes snapped open. She lay in her bed, drenched in sweat and panting. A fading sense of fear twisted her gut—the kind one feels when a terrifying phenomenon has just passed. Sitting up, she looked around, seeking the source of her fear that was almost certainly not in her room.

A knock on the door caused her to jump out of her skin. She shook her head, as though to shake away the panic.

_Calm down!_ Ran told herself firmly. _It isn't like me to be so jumpy…_ Then her eyes widened a fraction before her brow furrowed and the corners of her lips curved slightly downwards in an almost imperceptible frown. She looked out of the window: it was still dark. The small creases between her eyebrows deepened as she turned to look at her digital clock. It was two fifty-four in the morning. _Who in the world-_

The knock came again, more insistent than before. And, Ran realized with a jolt, the knocking was on the apartment door rather than the office door.

_A ghost!_ The conclusion sprang into her mind before she could stop it. A shudder ran through her body, and she instinctively dove back under the covers. For a few minutes she lay there suppressing shudders, eyes wide in terror as her mind worked overtime, imagining all the possible scenarios.

The knock sounded again. Ran's eyes suddenly narrowed and she sat up once more. _A ghost wouldn't knock,_ she told herself. _Last time I thought I saw ghosts it was all just a clever trick. That lesson hasn't been wasted on me._

Standing up determinedly, she walked to the door, carefully keeping her footsteps silent. Opening the door a fraction, she peeked out. All was still and silent. No ghosts. Taking courage from this fact, she opened the door enough to slip out into the living room. Walking slowly on tiptoe, she reached the door. Peeking out of the peephole, she frowned. Outside the apartment door stood two or three men, all dressed in black. Taking heart from the fact that they were men, not ghosts, she opened the door. The man in the front, fist raised to knock once more, looked at her with an expression of surprise.

The man in front had black hair, but of the two in back, one had brown hair and the other blond. The blond man had pale skin and large, bright green eyes: obviously a foreigner. The brown haired man had almond-shaped brown eyes and skin slightly darker than the man beside him, but appeared to be a foreigner as well. The man in front, with black hair, narrow brown eyes, light brown skin and a round face, appeared to be Japanese. All three wore black tuxedos.

"Yes?" Ran's voice was cold and cautious, but still held a drop of curiosity. After all, it is hard not to wonder why three men have decided to knock on your door at three in the morning.

"We have a few questions to ask," said the man in front calmly in perfect Japanese. Apparently, though in foreign company, he himself was Japanese. "May we come in?" Though tempted to ask him if he had a watch and, if he did, whether he knew how to read it, Ran forced herself to reply in an even, cold tone.

"No, I'm afraid. You may not." Her body was slowly taking a defensive position—she would lash out the moment that any of them tried anything. The man standing before her, whether he noticed this or not, remained polite.

"Very well. Then we shall talk here." He reached into his right pocket as he spoke and pulled out something that looked like a leather-covered book. Removing a leather strap that bound it shut and opening it, he flipped through until he found the page he wanted. "Do you know this person?" he asked, handing the open book to Ran as he spoke.

There was a photo on either page—the book was a photo album. What chilled Ran's blood, however, was the subject of the photos. There were two photos of Shinichi, both apparently taken when he was unaware. In one he was dressed in his school uniform, where as in the other he was dressed in his knight costume from the play. Ran turned the page to the previous one, wondering if there were more. For a moment, she was sure that it was Shinichi again. But then subtle differences began to show themselves clearly. _This is the man I saw on the street—the one I mistook for Shinichi,_ Ran realized._ But why do they have photos of him? Maybe they can't tell that he and Shinichi are different people…?_

Ran turned the page again. There was a woman who looked quite familiar. It was a few moments before the thought struck her that this could be the girl that had been walking with the man who looked like Shinichi both times she had seen him on the street. Turning the page once more, she saw a beautiful redheaded woman, about her own age. After that was a photo of a man she recognized as Hakuba Saguru. There were no photos beyond that.

Returning to Shinichi's photos, she turned the page in the other direction. Conan. Then herself, and then her father. Then Hattori Heiji, then Toyama Kazuha. Then one photo each of Genta, Mitsuhiko, Ayumi and Sonoko, followed by two of a young woman with reddish-brown hair who looked vaguely familiar, though Ran could not place whom it was. Then were two photos of Ai, then of Professor Agasa. Then were one photo each of Kudo Yusaku and Yukiko, Kisaki Eri and Sharon Vinyard. Following that were numerous photos of a young woman who Ran recognized as Chris Vinyard. What Ran could not understand, however, was why, while all the other photos were in order, there were other people's photos mixed among those of Chris Vinyard. Ran recognized two as Dr. Araide and the serial killer from Los Angelis, but the rest were entirely unknown to her. After that were a number of men dressed in black, including two who Ran recognized as the people in the blackmailing photos from earlier that day.

Closing the album, Ran handed it back to the Japanese man, more on guard than ever before. The man strapped the album shut once more and returned it to his pocket.

"Now, Miss Mouri," said the man, his tone still polite but much more serious than before. "I believe that you recognized a great number of people in these photos." Ran hesitated a moment before nodding curtly. "I, however, will not be able to speak to you out here as this whole thing is very confidential. Top secret, actually."

"Alright," said Ran, her mind made up. "Please go down and wait in front of the office. I will change and call my father and be there in ten minutes." The Japanese man's eyes hardened.

"No." Ran's eyes narrowed. "This whole thing is very confidential, Miss Mouri. We cannot let more people know about it than necessary."

"So why are you telling me and not my father? He's the detective." The Japanese man's mouth opened, almost angrily, but he closed it before saying anything.

"That is to be part of our conversation downstairs." Ran crossed her arms angrily.

"Very well. It was nice talking to you." But the man stopped her before the door was closed.

"We believe that you, Miss Mouri, are much further entangled in this mess than your father. Your father is simply a puppet. You appear to be in a position where you would be of great value as a hostage."

Ran slowly pulled the door back open.

"I'm sorry, I believe that you have the wrong house. My father is most certainly not a puppet, and there isn't even any case Dad's working on at the moment, so I would never _become_ a hostage in the first place."

"We shall talk about this when we are safe from prying ears." Ran hesitated. "We will not harm you, Miss Mouri. We only wish to get to the bottom of this mystery." Ran narrowed her eyes, though they were more calculating than cold this time.

"Mystery, you say? And _I'm_ involved, but not my father? …Please explain yourselves, or I will close this door and go back to sleep." The man closed his eyes and sighed in exasperation.

"Miss Mouri, I honestly would prefer to talk of this somewhere else." He indicated the staircase that extended downward straight to the street's sidewalk. "Anyone could over hear here."

Ran crossed her arms stubbornly.

"First tell me how, exactly, I'm involved. Otherwise, I see no need for this conversation." The man took a number of deep breaths, apparently attempting to remain calm through his annoyance. Then he remained still, his eyes closed, for a minute or so. When his eyes opened, they shone decisively.

"Miss Mouri, I believe that you are a good friend of the detective Kudo Shinichi."

"You just asked me that, and I told you so," snapped Ran. The man glared.

"Miss Mouri, you asked to know how you are involved. Please allow me to speak." Ran said nothing, so the man continued. "We believe you to be in grave danger. Your friend Kudo has been telling you that he cannot return because of a difficult case, we believe." Ran's eyes widened.

"How did-?"

"_Please_, Miss Mouri! Your questions can be asked and answered later!" Ran fell silent, the coolness dimming in her eyes to be replaced by uneasiness and worry. "We know that you have suspected this to be a lie a number of times, but were always proven wrong. The fact of the matter is, Miss Mouri, that he was telling you the truth. —Please allow us to explain in detail. We cannot do that here." Ran hesitated only a moment.

"Please wait in front of the office downstairs—I shall meet you there in five minutes," she said with a curt nod. "I would like to change first."

VVVVVVVVVV

His footsteps seemed to echo loudly through the silence as he walked down the deserted road. He dearly wished that he could collapse and go to sleep, but he couldn't—not while he knew he was being followed. He was tired from the day's occurrences. He was certain that he had just spent hours wandering helplessly through the woods, going as straight as he could with the moon as his compass, before finally coming out to this small country road. That had exhausted him further. So he worked his mind, more to keep himself distracted than anything else, as he worked his feet and hurried down the dirt road, remaining in the shadows of the trees on the side so as to remain as inconspicuous as possible.

Nothing seemed to make sense, and no matter how he puzzled over it, he could not even force any sense into these occurrences. Obviously, the man and woman who had kidnapped him had known that he was going to come, and were hence involved with Vermouth in some way or another. However, it went against everything he knew of Vermouth to send him a note and lure him into a trap.

Then again, he had not heard of her in half a year. Perhaps something had happened in that time. But then had all that about wanting Haibara been a bluff? Or had she foreseen that he would get away and meant the kidnapping as a warning…?

And who was following him? He simply could not shake off the feeling that he was being followed. They were certainly unrelated to the kidnappers, or else he would have been back in that trunk long ago.

Conan's eyes narrowed as a thought occurred to him. What if there had been a stir in the Black Organization in these six months? Perhaps there had been a split, with so many people on the opposing side that the leaders could not simply kill everyone to be rid of it. That would put a certain amount of sense into all that had occurred in the hours since he had left the Mouri residency.

Perhaps Vermouth had sent the letter, but it had been found out by someone who she believed to be an ally. That person had alerted people who opposed her for whatever reason, and they had attempted to kidnap him. However, Vermouth had foreseen that something of the sort could happen, and assigned someone to spy on him.

Conan frowned and shook his head. Something still did not seem right.

Detective though he was, Conan knew that all that he could do was speculate. That was the problem—_there was no evidence of anything whatsoever_. There was the trunk fallen on the sidewalk who-knew-how-far-away, there was the rope tied around the door handle, and there were his broken glasses in his pocket. There was nothing else.

Conan had always solved mysteries that seemed impossible to solve by finding and understanding the meaning of certain clues. A misplaced item here, a strange phrase there…

It was not so this time. The site of the crime was not in a single place. He had heard no more than the arguing voices of his captors. He could remember no significant words that they had voiced. He had no idea where he was, and by the time he found his way back, the police would no doubt already be surrounding the apartment building. The forest had been too dark to search for clues, and he was not willing to turn on the flashlight that was a feature of his watch—he had known that he may have been able to get away from the personage spying on him if he moved as silently as possible and tried to blend in with the trees. If he turned on the light, that would simply be a signal that would lead the person straight to him.

A sudden, violent shiver ran through the little boy's body.

_That's another problem,_ thought Conan wryly. The end of autumn was cold in Tokyo, even in the daytime. It was night, and Conan was wearing no more than a thin white shirt. His coat remained in his captors' trunk, and he was cold. Very cold.

Conan sneezed.

_I really have to get back quickly…_

It was too dark to see very much of his surroundings, or look at his watch. He was still reluctant to turn on the watch's light. There were no streetlamps.

Conan paid as little attention to his surroundings as he could. He was still cautious of the person that was possibly spying on him, but he knew that if he thought about random things and took one step at a time without thinking of the seemingly endless path before him, he could move much more quickly.

He thought of a soccer match that he had watched that morning. He thought of what his mother and father could be doing at that moment—they had promised to visit sometime soon, despite his annoyed protests that they were welcome to stay away for as long as they liked. They were currently arguing over something trivial—what it was he could not remember, nor did he care. He sincerely disliked being wrapped up in the midst of such petty arguments. He thought of everything that had happened and what he could possibly do to get a better grasp on the situation. At the current moment, he could think of only two solutions: keep going this way and try to get to the Professor, or turn back and try to investigate the forest. As he was tired, cold, hungry and did not feel very much like playing Vermouth's life-endangering games at that moment, he opted to keep going and hope that he got back to the city.

Unfortunately, he had no idea in which direction the car had gone from the city, or how long it had ran, though he was pretty sure that it had been going quite fast—above the speed limit, probably. He guessed that he had been trapped for ten, twenty minutes in the trunk, so he figured that it should not take more than an hour to get back to the city—if he were going in the correct direction. If not, he was likely to go further and further from any city.

As he walked, he eventually noticed that the ground at his feet was getting brighter. Looking up, he saw a small house, lit.

At once Conan picked up his pace and held his watch up to the light. Three-ten. No wonder he was so exhausted.

When he came up right beside that house, Conan stopped and hesitated. Should he try to get directions from them…? After a few minutes of hesitation, he figured that he was better off trying to get back sooner than being overly cautious. Caution had never been one of his traits in the first place.

He walked right up to the door and knocked. A few minutes went by and no one answered. He tried knocking again. This time, he heard hastening footsteps, and then the door opened to reveal a kindly looking chubby old woman. Her eyes widened considerably in surprise to find a little boy, about seven years of age, on her doorstep practically in the middle of nowhere at three in the morning.

"Um…" Conan found himself stuttering as though he really were seven-years-old. "I got lost. Do you know where I could go to get back to Beika City?"

The woman continued to stare at him incredulously. Conan shifted uncomfortably. However, the woman soon appeared to regain her senses.

"…Beika City, you say? Why, it would take hours by car!" Conan blinked and opened his mouth to protest, but the woman was already speaking again. "How did you get here? Where are your mommy and daddy?"

Conan stared at the woman for a moment, and then decided to go with the innocent little boy act.

"I was on a trip with some friends, and I decided to go into the forest to explore, but then I got lost. So I wandered around until I found this street, and then I followed it…"

"Oh, you poor child! Then you must have been walking around for hours! You must be exhausted. But you see, that forest that you walked through is actually quite extensive, so it would take hours for a car to follow the roads all the way around it and get back."

_So I've come out on the wrong side,_ thought Conan with a curse. What should he do? Should he ask to call Professor Agasa to come and get him? No, that would take too long. He could try to convince her to drive him back… No, he was probably still being followed by a potentially dangerous person. It was better to involve this woman as little as possible.

So he would have to get back in the forest and, using the moon as his compass, walk straight back through the forest.

"Okay, thank you, obaasan(1)!" he said with a bright smile, and began to walk away. But unfortunately, the woman was not the sort of woman to just let a little boy knock on her door and walk away into the middle of nowhere at three in the morning. Her arm shot out and grasped his arm. When Conan turned around apprehensively, her eyes held a kind but harsh light.

"I understand. You must want to get back to your home. But it's too dangerous to go out on your own at this time. Why don't you call your family from my phone?"

Left with no choice, Conan followed the woman into her house. It was one floor except for a loft in the main room, and had three rooms—a bathroom, a bedroom, and a main room with a small kitchen in one corner, a dining table on one side, and a couch, a few chairs and a television on the other side. The woman showed him to the phone, and Conan dialed Professor Agasa's number. It rang and rang, but no one picked up. Conan hung up when the answering machine started. Then an idea struck him and he redialed.

It began to ring again, and he began to speak.

"Daddy? …Sorry…yeah, sorry daddy. I wandered off in the forest and got lost. …Yeah, a nice lady found me. …She said that I just came right through the forest, so it would take a couple hours by car, since you'd have to go all the way around the forest. …A small house on the side of the road, it was the only one here." In his ears, the ringing stopped and the answering machine started. Conan hastened to finish his act so that he could hang up and not leave anything on the answering machine. "…Yeah. …Okay. …Okay, bye."

Conan managed to hang up just before the answering machine began recording, and breathed a sigh of relief. Then he turned to the woman.

"Daddy said that he knows where this is, so he'll be here in a few hours." The woman smiled kindly.

"That's good. Now, you must not have eaten in all this time. Would you like me to get you something?"

Conan's stomach rumbled quietly, but he told himself to remain focused. He only had a few hours to carry out his plan and get out before the woman suspected.

"No thank you, obaasan. I'm sleepy. May I sleep while I wait for Daddy?"

"Of course. Why don't you just go into the bedroom over there and sleep? I'll stay awake and wait for your daddy, so you can close the door if the light bothers you, okay?"

Conan smiled innocently and yawned. He did not need to fake the yawn—he actually was exhausted.

He walked into the bedroom, turned off the light and closed the door. He then lay down in the bed, just in case the woman should come to check on him, and waited for his eyes to adjust to the relative darkness.

His eyes finally adjusted, and he looked around for an escape rout. The only window was much too high—even if he could climb up that far using something or another, the drop on the other side would not be silent. He would only use that as a last resort.

There was a small hole above his head—perhaps the woman was constructing something. Narrowing his eyes, Conan inspected it critically. In the end, however, he shook his head. It was very doubtful that he would actually fit though it.

Finally he resolved that his only way out was the window. He looked around the room. Apart from the bed were a bedside cabinet, a desk and its chair. He moved the chair, as quietly as he could, over below the window. He climbed up on to the chair and reached up.

"Oh no you don't."

Spinning around on the chair and nearly losing his balance, Conan saw the woman standing against the still-closed door. The woman walked up to him and lifted him off the chair.

"I thought you might try something like this. You didn't even actually call your daddy, did you?"

A gleam flashed across the woman's eyes and chilled Conan to the bone. What was it…? What was this feeling…? Who was this…?

And then an idea struck him. Conan grabbed the skin of the woman's face and tugged.

The tanned skin and short grey hair came away to reveal pale skin and long, blond hair. The woman, not even appearing surprised, set him down, removed her grey coat so that bundles of cloth fell out to reveal a slender body clad in black clothing, and crossed her arms over her chest with a small smile.

"You've finally figured it out, have you Cool Guy?"

"Finally? I've hardly been here for ten minutes." Conan's heart pounded wildly, cold sweat ran down his back and his brain had difficulty processing this sudden revelation, but he managed to act somewhat calmly.

"So. I take it you received my message."

"I take it you've gone off your rocker," Conan returned sarcastically. She raised her brows elegantly and removed the brown contact lenses to reveal bright blue eyes.

"And what do you mean by that?"

"I mean that it's just crazy to expect me to deliver a message if you intend to kill me on the way!" The amusement in Vermouth's eyes flickered and vanished to be replaced by serious solemnity.

"I didn't send them. I've been watching you since you left the Mouri Detective Agency. I was just as surprised as you were when that trunk came down. I was watching you dodge the car from the doorway. And then when you were kidnapped, I took one of the motorbikes and followed." Conan glared and crossed his arms, making sure that he could activate his watch's tranquilizing gun at any given time.

"You just took a motorbike? You'd have needed the keys."

"Haven't you ever heard of master keys?" asked Vermouth, removing a ring of keys from her pocket and dangling them before Conan.

"Okay, okay. So you were the one spying on me. Then _why_ in the _world_ did you see the need to break my glasses? You want me to deliver that message to Haibara, don't you? That would have been a way that I could contact her." Vermouth's brow furrowed.

"Break your glasses? What on earth are you talking about?" Conan angrily removed the remains of his glasses from his pocket. Vermouth stared.

"I most certainly didn't do this."

"What are you trying to achieve? Obviously you did it. Who else could have?" Vermouth slowly shook her head.

"Whoever it was, I assure you—it was not me." Conan looked from the glasses to Vermouth. Should he believe her…?

Conan shook his head.

"Fine. Then are you going to take me back, seeing as how otherwise I can't deliver your precious letter?"

Vermouth smiled.

"But of course. —However, might I point out that we have a certain dilemma?" Conan narrowed his eyes to slits. He didn't like the look on Vermouth's face.

"And that would be…?"

"It would appear that someone else is following you." Conan raised his brows in incredulously. Vermouth laughed. "Of course, I wouldn't expect you to believe me." Conan sighed and shrugged.

"It doesn't matter anyway. We still have the issue that we'd be in a car together for two or three hours, and neither of us trusts the other. Your hand's ready to grab your gun at any given time, as is mine." Vermouth chuckled at this and crouched to Conan's height.

"I really wouldn't be so sure, Cool Guy. We both know that you're not going to shoot unless I shoot, and I'm certainly not going to shoot unless you shoot." Conan tapped a foot.

"I'm supposed to believe that?"

"Oh, naturally. You've been running around for hours on end. You could walk through the forest on your own, sure, but the sun would be high in the sky by the time you made it, and you're already exhausted. I, on the other hand, need you to deliver that message for me."

Conan relaxed his face and smirked.

"Fine. But you make one suspicious move, and you'll be fast asleep before you have time to take that gun out."

"Oh, believe me, I intend to do the same, Cool Guy." She then headed for the bedside cabinet and began searching for something.

"So, where's the woman who actually does own this house?" Vermouth pointed over her shoulder.

"Tied up and fast asleep in the loft."

These words gave Conan a start. He realized that he had been letting down his guard as he spoke with Vermouth. However she may be acting civil and have no reason to kill him at the moment, Conan knew that it was extremely unwise to let down his guard.

As he headed for the loft, he considered Vermouth's claim that there was someone else following him. He, however, found it hard to believe that she could have been following without noticing if there had been someone else. But then why had she lied? Vermouth usually spoke the truth, but after all, her favorite phrase was 'a secret makes a woman woman'…

Climbing up a narrow staircase to the loft, he found a woman identical to what Vermouth had looked like previously. He unbound her and removed her gag, and then attempted to move her. However, he found that this was quite difficult, given the woman's overly large size and Conan's own overly small size.

Sighing, he walked down the stairs to find Vermouth. She was waiting patiently by the door. Conan hesitated, but then asked his question.

"Would you help me carry this woman to her bed?" One of Vermouth's eyebrows rose, but she said nothing, only walking up the stairs to the loft, lifting the woman with some difficulty, and carrying her down the stairs, depositing her in her bed with a great exhale of breath.

Conan, meanwhile, searched for all the light switches and turned them off.

Vermouth watched this with a trace of a smile on her lips, but said nothing.

VVVVVVVVVV

"So, basically, you mean to say that there's this criminal organization, and Shinichi somehow got mixed up with them, and had to hide himself."

Akisawa, as the Japanese man had introduced himself, nodded. The two other men, one French and the other American, did not know Japanese.

"Yes, that's the general idea."

When she had let them into the office, Akisawa had explained that the men in black in the photos were members of a certain criminal organization. All the photos were people who were thought to be somehow associated with the organization. Then he had explained that they believed that Shinichi had not gone missing because he had to solve a case, but because he had to hide himself because he had been mixed up with a case.

"But then why didn't Shinichi just come to my father? You can't be telling me everything. Nothing adds up. What did this organization do to Shinichi to make him need to hide himself? Shinichi isn't a coward—he's been involved in a countless number of cases that I know of, and he always has tried to solve them, even when they put him in danger."

"What if they took away his greatest tool, Miss Mouri?" The man's face was entirely calm as he said this, but a sharp light gleamed in his eyes.

"Tool?" Ran's brow was furrowed. "What do you mean? What are you talking about? There can't be anything that Shinichi couldn't go without."

"Perhaps so…" said Akisawa, speaking slowly and cautiously. "But what if they took away people's belief in his abilities? Took away his fame?" Ran shook her head.

"No one could do that. They'd have to have modified everyone's memories. They couldn't possibly do that, and Shinichi's name is still well-known!"

"Then what if they changed _him_?" Akisawa cut back. "Changed him so that he was both powerless, and would not be recognized as Kudo Shinichi?"

"That's impossible," said Ran firmly. "And even if they could do that, all he had to do was build up a new reputation as his new identity."

"Ah," said Akisawa with the trace of a smile on his lips. "And didn't your father's reputation improve just around the same time as Kudo disappeared?" Ran's eyes widened at the implication.

"My father can't be Shinichi. After all, if he was, they would have had to get rid of Dad, and-"

"I'm not saying that Kudo was turned into your father, Miss Mouri. After all, did I not already say that you are more deeply involved in this than your father?" Ran looked blankly at Akisawa. Akisawa sighed. It appeared that he was going to have to spell this out word for word. "I am saying, Miss Mouri, that your father gained a hidden helper around the time that Kudo vanished. This helper assisted in solving cases, raising your father's reputation."

"But Dad doesn't have any-" And just as Akisawa was about to shout in frustration, the meaning of his words struck Ran. "Conan-kun!"

"Yes. We believe that Kudo Shinichi now goes by the name of Edogawa Conan." Despite the many times that she had found herself suspecting the very same thing, Ran found herself contradicting Akisawa.

"That can't be. I was led to think so many times, but each time I was proven wrong. Sometimes it was a phone call from Shinichi when Conan-kun was here. Another time, Shinichi reappeared, and I saw Conan-kun and Shinichi together quite a lot."

_Why am I doing this?_ Ran thought to herself. She had suspected this so many times; why was it that now that someone else was bringing this theory to her, she contradicted it? Then it struck her. _I want proof,_ she realized. _I want proof that this time it isn't just tricks of the mind. I want to know why they think so._

"We believe that we have reasonable explanations for those things. But first—do you remember my earlier comment about your father being a puppet?" Ran's eyes hardened in reply. "Tell me: where is Edogawa usually while your father solves a mystery?"

"Behind-" Ran widened her eyes in shock. "You mean that he whispers the solution to Dad? Then Dad knows, too!" But Akisawa shook his head.

"Yes, that is the logical conclusion. However, while investigating, we came to realize that that was not possible. For one thing, if that were the case, your father would appreciate Edogawa's opinion. Instead, he treats him like a worthless little boy, and often tells him to shut up."

"But as a cover up…"

"There are other points. For example, when going places involved with cases, your father often actively attempts to keep Edogawa from going."

"How do you know that?" asked Ran with narrowed eyes.

"We have been investigating this quite thoroughly, Miss Mouri," came the cold reply. "We assure you that our sources are quite reliable. However, if he knew that Edogawa was the secret to his success, then he would most likely allow the boy to come along."

"But that could be a cover-up as well. He could just give Conan-kun a call and explain everything to him that way." But Akisawa paid Ran's words no heed.

"Tell me, Miss Mouri. What is your father generally known as?"

"Detective Mouri Kogoro, of course."

"But more commonly…?"

"You mean 'the Sleeping Kogoro'?"

"Exactly. How did Detective Mouri come to have such an unusual nickname?"

"Because he tends to look as though he is asleep when solving mysteries."

"Throughout the time during which there is a mystery, from beginning to end?" Ran stared.

"No. Just when he's- Wait. Why are you asking me this? I thought you said that you had very reliable sources."

Akisawa leaned back in the couch were he sat, one companion on either side.

"You, Miss Mouri, appear to want proof of what we tell you. Therefore, I am letting you state the facts, so that you will be able to understand. Your father only seems to be asleep at the end of the mystery, when giving the entire solution. Correct?" Ran hesitated for a few moments before replying.

"Yes."

"And Edogawa is always behind him."

"Always…? I'm not sure… Sometimes he just seems to vanish entirely, sometimes he's in front of dad, sometimes he's behind him…"

"But you generally can't see what he is doing while your father is talking." Ran thought for a few moments.

"While, if he were doing something strange, I'm sure we would have noticed."

Akisawa reached inside his outer jacket and pulled a single photo from one of the inner pockets.

"What do you think of this?" he asked as he handed her the photo across the coffee table between them.

Ran took it. And she stared. In the photo was Conan, behind her father, and holding his bowtie up to his mouth. She looked up at the three men inquisitively.

"That bowtie is a voice changer," Akisawa explained. "We were puzzled at first. It was obviously not your father solving those mysteries. Please, Miss Mouri," he added in slight annoyance as Ran opened her mouth to protest, "he appears to have no idea whatsoever, and then suddenly collapses and starts talking in great detail. Sometimes his reasoning even flips over entirely when this happens. Even you, loyal to your father as you are, cannot possibly have never noticed this." Ran was silent. "And then we realized that this little boy's words are always a great help in solving the mysteries. A normal boy may notice small details and be helpful, but he would generally voice things that are unrelated to the mystery as well. Yet, somehow, nearly all of Edogawa's words and actions become a great assistance in solving the mystery. In addition, if one watches him closely, he does not say those things on spur of the moment inspirations. They are well thought out, if one is to judge from his demeanor."

"So then you're saying that Conan-kun actually solves all these mysteries by giving hints and speaking for Dad with the voice changer…?"

"Of course, if that were all, your father would know. So we believe that he puts your father to sleep with a tranquilizing gun, first." Ran stared. Then her eyes widened.

"That watch! He said that it was a toy that let out a little ball, but that must be it! And when he can't get Dad, he uses Sonoko!"

Ran was so absorbed in this discovery that she did not notice Akisawa's eyes narrowing in calculation. But after a few moments, Ran looked back at Akisawa.

"Alright. So with that voice changer, he could have had someone who does know his identity, like Professor Agasa or…or Hattori-kun call me. But then what about the times that I saw Shinichi and Conan-kun together? And it wasn't just one time, either. There was one time when Shinichi just dropped by briefly, but Conan-kun was definitely there. And another time, Shinichi stayed for about two days, and the whole time, Conan-kun was there, too."

"In the case of the time when Kudo only stopped by briefly, that could have very well been Kaitou Kid." Ran stared at Akisawa as though he had lost his mind. Akisawa saw that expression. "Kaitou Kid is a master of disguise. He can change his voice at will. And either way, he and Kudo already look and sound quite alike." Ran's eyes widened.

"Then the one in the photos that looked like Shinichi…"

"Named Kuroba Kaito, age seventeen. Yes, we believe him to be Kaitou Kid.

"Now, as for the other time, when Kudo stayed for nearly two days: were any of Conan's friends missing at the time?" Ran narrowed her eyes in thought, but eventually shook her head.

"I really wouldn't remember."

"Then, was anything out of the ordinary with either Kudo or Edogawa?" Ran thought once again.

"Not really. Conan was a little quiet, but he'd just gotten out of the hospital and had a cold, so…" Akisawa's eyes narrowed sharply.

"A cold, you say? Then he was wearing a cold mask?"

"Well, yes, but what…? Oh, you think that there must have been a voice changer on the back of the mask. But really, he would have had to ask one of his fellow first graders, as they were at the time, to do that, Akisawa-san. If Conan is Shinichi, and it's so important that his identity be kept secret, then I highly doubt that he would entrust one of them with his secret. They are very nice company, but they aren't really the sort of people that you'd want to tell your deepest secrets."

"What if one of them were in the same situation as he is?" Ran stared.

"But none of them act particularly out of the ordinary…"

"Are you acquainted with Haibara Ai, Miss Mouri? I believe that she is rather quiet, and when she does speak, she says things rather insightful and intelligent for a mere second-grader."

"So you believe that she is a shrunken adult as well?" For some reason, this thought did not surprise Ran very much. Ai, after all, had never made much of an attempt to act childish.

"Not believe, Miss Mouri—we know. Her real name is Miyano Shiho. At first, it seemed that she merely held information that the Organization did not wish revealed. However, new information recently came to light, and that is why we are suddenly working harder.

"You see, we used to believe that Haibara and Edogawa had somehow had brushes with the Organization, and somehow gotten shrunk. Perhaps it was something that Professor Agasa, a friend and neighbor of Kudo, invented to keep them safe. However, recently, a small, single piece of information told us that we were wrong.

"Miyano Shiho was a member of the Organization. A chemist and inventor, we believe." Akisawa's sharp eyes were boring into Ran. Ran was becoming very uneasy.

"Wait—so now you think that they're actually working for that Organization? But you just said that I'd have value as a hostage. If they were working for this Organization, then no hostage would be needed. And Shinichi _solves_ crimes—he doesn't commit them! He never would."

Akisawa's eyes continued to bore into Ran. And then it struck her, and she leapt up.

_He didn't mean that I was of value as a hostage to anyone else—he meant that I was of value as a hostage to him!_ Ran was angry. Very angry. And she was ready to strike at any moment. Akisawa, however, sat calmly.

"We are not about to drag you off, Miss Mouri. We are fighting crime, after all. We simply want your consent to come with us. If you would just come with us, you would have a comfortable room to stay, things to keep you occupied, and food. We do not wish to harm you. All we want is to get hold of Edogawa so that we can talk with him."

"You just want to talk with him? When you think that he's a member of a criminal organization? That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Shinichi has always fought crime. No matter what the circumstances, he'd never work as a criminal."

"Then what if the organization were threatening him?"

"He still wouldn't. If I know Shinichi, he'd die before he'd become a criminal."

"What if it wasn't his life that they were threatening him with? What if it was the life of someone dear to him? Such as yourself?" Ran scoffed at this.

"He knows I can protect myself. He's been on the receiving end of my karate often enough."

"Maybe so, but would karate save you against guns?" Ran hesitated for a moment, but then shook her head.

"Okay, so you have proof that Ai-chan was once a member of a criminal organization. What if she wanted to leave, and had Professor Agasa make some medicine to shrink her or something? And then Shinichi somehow found out something of value and had to shrink himself to get away."

"If that were the case, you would be in great danger. They could easily take you hostage. Wouldn't he have told you, so that you could be on your guard?"

"Then why does he fight crime if he's a criminal himself?"

"Perhaps he does not want to be in the organization and is being forced into it, or perhaps he has his own reasons."

"Then why does he stay here? Why not just disappear completely and go to that organization instead?"

"To spy, perhaps. We believe that his job is that of a spy."

"Spying on what, exactly?" snapped Ran. She was beginning to lose her temper. "You just pointed out that my father is no detective himself, which would leave no point in spying on him."

"The police, or perhaps some cases that your father encounters," was Akisawa's prompt reply. Ran was silent for a time, looking at the floor. When she looked up at Akisawa, her gaze was sharp and strong.

"What do you intend to do if I refuse to go?"

Akisawa sighed.

"I would try my best to convince you. If that fails despite my best efforts, I am afraid that we will have to use force." Ran's eyes narrowed to slits, and then a smirk broke out across her face.

"I'm afraid that you're not going to be able to do that." Akisawa gave her a cold look.

"We already know that you are an expert at karate. These two are experts of martial arts as well. They have been trained extensively."

A look of amusement flitted across Ran's face, but it was gone as suddenly as it appeared.

"Of course," she said calmly, motionless. "I had guessed as much."

And then before they knew what was happening, she had bolted across the room and shoved open a window. By the time that Akisawa and his companions realized what she was doing and bolted towards the window, she had already swung herself over the edge and disappeared. Reaching the window and looking down, they saw her bolting down the street.

VVVVVVVVVV

The car was in complete silence. Vermouth and Conan had not exchanged a single word since getting into the car. Conan had noticed that Vermouth was using a master key to start the car, but he had remained silent. Vermouth, too, had said nothing when he got into the front passenger seat.

The rocking of the car seemed to be a temptation luring him into the dark paradise of sleep. He fought it desperately, but with nothing to look out at and nothing interesting within the car, he was losing the battle.

He was horrified when he looked at his watch after what felt like hours of struggle, only to find that it was one forty-three—barely five minutes since they had started out. So he took his last resort—conversation with Vermouth.

"If you're bothering to take all this trouble to get me back to deliver this message, then why don't you just deliver it to Haibara yourself? It would really save you a lot of trouble, you know."

Vermouth glanced at Conan before a hint of a smile appeared on her face.

"Yes, that's true. And I could simply kill you right here." Conan felt his blood chill, and his tiredness flew away. "But that wouldn't be half so amusing, would it? Your tranquilizing gun has only one shot. My pistol has five. I have quite a better chance, don't you think? This way I get to wait and see what you decide to do. Who will you choose? Angel or Sherry? I certainly can't predict the outcome." The chill was gone, but Conan glared angrily at the woman who tormented him. He knew that she knew exactly how much torment he would have to endure, choosing one or the other of two people that he desperately wanted to protect.

"And what would you do?" asked Conan, before he could stop himself. Vermouth shot a glance his way, perhaps in surprise that he would ask such a thing of an enemy. There was a long silence, and just as Conan was beginning to think that Vermouth would not reply, she did.

"Do you mean as you, or as myself?"

Conan looked at Vermouth in surprise.

"As me, I suppose."

A cold smile appeared on Vermouth's face.

"You'll struggle. It's going to be painful to you. You won't know which to choose. You'll think and think, desperately trying to find the easiest way to save them both. You won't give the message to Sherry, because you know that she would go without a doubt if she knew. Maybe you'll try to hide one, or maybe you'll try to hide both. But you'd need a suitable hiding place. In the end, whatever decision you make will be the result of a lot of deep thinking." Conan stared.

"I see that you believe in the phrase 'know your enemies'."

The smile vanished. Conan thought he saw a flash of something flit across her face, but he could not be sure what it was, or if it had even actually existed.

"Yes. I suppose I do."

There was another silence. Conan debated with himself, and finally resolved to ask the question that had been pricking at his curiosity, if only to keep himself awake.

"Would the outcome be different if it were you?" He looked at Vermouth, but her face was expressionless, and she did not reply. Conan snorted to himself. "Well, I suppose it would be. You'd just let them both die." His eyes turned out the window, and he did not see the expressionless glance that Vermouth threw his way.

"…No," he heard a few moments later. It took a few seconds before he realized what she was talking about. There was a short silence.

"Then what would you do?"

Another silence.

"I would hand over Sherry." Conan snorted.

"Of course you would. If you people get Sherry, it will benefit you. Killing Ran will do nothing but upset a number of people, which doesn't particularly benefit you in any way. I don't know why you wrap her up into all this at all! It's got nothing to do with her!"

"You should be intelligent enough to know that it's not about her involvement with the situation, but her involvement with you. She's precious to you, and that gets her wrapped up in all this." Vermouth's voice was cold as ice. Conan scowled, but said nothing, only looking back out the window. It was a few moments before Vermouth spoke again. "…And I would do the same even if the person wasn't Sherry." Her voice was quiet, almost as if she were speaking to herself. Conan's head snapped around to look at her in surprise, but it was entirely expressionless. He could think of nothing to say in response, and Vermouth said no more.

As he turned back to the window, Conan's mind was in a torrent of thoughts. Half was worrying over the note. The other half was pondering Vermouth's strange words. They implied that she had some sort of…liking or respect for Ran. Why? Vermouth had never met Ran, even as Chris Vinyard. He thought back to the time that they had met Sharon Vinyard, but the only thing that came to mind was the time that Ran had saved Rose. Had that won her Sharon's respect? It seemed highly unlikely of someone such as Vermouth. So he thought to Ran's possible encounters with Dr. Araide, when he had been Vermouth in disguise. Nothing came to mind. Perhaps something had happened at Ran's school…?

As such thoughts spun around Conan's head, sleep began to creep up on him once more. But every time that his eyes almost closed, he forced them back open. He was not going to sleep now. Not in a car with Vermouth. She was unpredictable and lethal. He needed to remain alert. But such thoughts seemed to become further as he began to drift off and was forced to drag them back to prevent sleep from winning this battle.

"Why don't you go to sleep?"

The voice from his right startled him, and he jumped violently. Conan once more shoved the tiredness away, dragging back his alertness.

"In this car? With you? No thank you, I still value my life."

Vermouth smiled as he sent a cold glare her way.

"I've already said that I won't kill you, and you need sleep. You even refused food."

"You're too unpredictable. I refuse to stake my life for just a tiny bit of tiredness."

He heard a strange sound from Vermouth, and it was a moment before he realized it to be a chuckle. Never having heard or seen her laugh before, Conan stared. But Vermouth said no more, and as time passed and he ran out of new, interesting thoughts to occupy himself, Conan was once more forced to fight his losing battle with sleep.

(1) obaasan—a term used to refer to an old woman, or to one's grandmother.

**Replies to reviews:**

**meril **– This can't really count as soon, but I am updating…

**Basser** – This isn't soon, but it's long. (bangs head on computer) Ack! I always do that! Forgetting footnotes Thanks for telling me—otherwise I'd never have noticed.

**DeafLizgon** – Yup. I'm hoping that Heiji's bad timing can make another appearance, but it's starting to get harder…

**chalicity **– Yeah, maybe he will drop with exhaustion. But in the prologue, it says that he hasn't had any food or sleep, and not even twelve hours have passed, and he's already exhausted. I've no idea how he's going to hold out for over forty-eight more hours.

**YumeTakato** – Thanks! You don't check this section very often, then?

**Ice-Song **– Thanks! So many stories in this section focus so much on the romance that I thought I'd try writing one that focused on the mystery and suspense instead.

**watashi wa jeru desu **– I've counted each of your reviews as one, and made this over eight thousand words. Don't worry—your review didn't seem like a flame at all.

_Author's Note: I'm starting to want to stray from the prologue. That prologue gives an interesting structure to the story, with you already having some idea of what's going to happen, but it's also starting to be a rope that binds me. I've started coming up with all sorts of different ideas, but I can't carry them out because of what I've already said in the prologue. Oh well… I can always take hold of these new ideas after the first three days._

_Review, people! Again—the more reviews I get, the longer the chapter will be!_


	6. Perilous Disappearances

This chapter is dedicated to Basser, from whom came the idea of one of Conan and Vermouth's activities that take place in this chapter.

**Perilous Danger**

**Chapter 5:Perilous Disappearances**

Beika Park was a place that was generally very bright, even at night, as long as one stuck to the paths. It was a large park, and so streetlamps stood on the sides of the paths. However, if one went off the paths, into a tree grove, field or playground, it was quite dark. In playgrounds, one would frequently trip over and bump into things in the darkness: sandboxes, poles, low fences… In fields, one could not see the ground, which was very even on the path between lamps, but very troublesome here. There were rather large rocks, tree stumps, small things that people had forgotten or left behind, and uneven ground.

However, Mouri Ran felt that the tree groves were the most difficult to move around in during the nighttime. The ground was just as, if not more, uneven as that of the fields, and she frequently found herself slamming into tree trunks or branches that she had not seen. However, she knew that pursuers were not far away, and she would be much more visible in the exposure of a field or playground. Besides, even if they anticipated that she would enter a tree grove, there were only one or two fields and playgrounds in the large Beika Park, and a countless number of tree groves. As long as she remained completely silent, Ran figured, she should be able to get away.

But she had a single dilemma: she did not know where to go. Her first thought had been the Professor's house. But it seemed that he was even deeper in this than she was. Then she had thought of her mother. But they knew so much that they probably knew who and where her mother was, and that would be the first place they would look. So she had turned to Sonoko's house. It had not been long, however, before she realized that that was a bad idea as well. Sonoko was just as deeply sunken in this whole mess. With no other solution that came to mind, she had run this way and that, trying to throw off her pursuers and find a place to go at the same time.

However, thinking of a place to go proved much harder than it sounded. She would not even consider going to the house of a friend who was entirely uninvolved in this whole mess, which would only involve more people unnecessarily. Going to her mother or the Professor would be anticipated, which made them inadvisable actions, only to be taken as a last resort. Eventually, she concluded that she needed to go to someone who was involved, but not too deeply. Sonoko was involved, of course, but she had no idea of her involvement, and Ran felt her heart wrench at the thought of explaining to her best friend that she was actually not as smart as she had thought, but only a 'puppet' used as a convenience. And, of course, she could not go to her without explaining everything.

The first person that had come to mind and seemed like a person that she could run to had been Hattori Heiji. However, even as she turned the idea over in her head, calculating how much money was in the pockets of the pants that she had pulled on randomly before going to meet Akisawa and the other two and how she should get to the train station, she suddenly realized that she did not feel close enough to Hattori-kun to request his protection at his own risk so abruptly. Her heart sinking, she thought of Kazuha-chan. She was involved anyway, if only because of her friendship with Hattori-kun, and her father was in the police force of Osaka. But on the other hand, Ran thought, she had a chance of remaining uninvolved as long as no one decided to take her hostage.

It was just as she was climbing into a tree to hide that the answer struck her: Detectives Sato and Takagi. She knew both of them personally, and they were police—it was their job to deal with things like this. Of course, she could go to Inspectors Megure and Shiratori as well, but she knew that they saw her as a child, and were less likely to open their ears to her. Chances were that they would listen to her, but they would then take complete control over the situation, and Ran wanted some amount of control because of the people involved. She knew that her opinions would be taken into account more with either Sato or Takagi.

Ran was about to climb back down from the branch that she had just reached, when a slight movement caught her eye. Hastily pulling herself back up quietly and ceasing all movement, she squinted, seeking out the source of the movement. It was only a bird—perhaps an owl. But she reconsidered her decision to climb down so soon. She had no idea where either detective lived anyway, so she would be better off waiting in the tree until the sun came up. After that, she could go to the police station and see if she could inconspicuously find Sato or Takagi.

Leaning back against the trunk, she began to wait for the sun to rise.

VVVVVVVVVV

"Red. And I don't even need to ask yours—it's black, isn't it?"

"A common mistake," came the amused reply. "Although I admit that I encourage it. It's navy blue, actually."

"Navy? Is there any particular reason for that?"

"You would be wasting your turn to ask that."

"I'll take your word for it, then. You've traveled around a lot with your profession, right? So which place did you like best?"

"Germany. It was years ago that I went there, but I loved it. They have large cities, but those cities are beautiful—not like Tokyo or LA. And the countryside is clear and full of flowers…or at least it was where and when I went. And yours? I daresay you've traveled around quite a bit as well, with parents like yours."

Had the circumstances been any different, Conan would have been repulsed by what he was doing. However, at that particular point in time, he was feeling that his life was more important than his dignity. And so here he was, playing a question game with his mortal enemy. Each would ask a question that the other would answer, and then the questioner would have to answer his or her own question. Then the other would ask another question. They followed an unspoken agreement not to go too deeply into each other's personal lives, and to steer clear of professional lives all together. To any uninvolved outsider, it may have seemed like a miracle that the game was not serving as a very effective lullaby to the tired Conan. But Conan himself was feeling quite the opposite—in fact, he had completely forgotten his tiredness for the moment. In their small questions, he was discovering a part of Vermouth that was nothing like what he had known until then—a part that seemed almost…_human_. He knew, however, that it would be very stupid to let his guard down, and therefore was running the thought _cold-blooded, spectacular actress of a murderess_ through his head regularly, ensuring that he did not subconsciously lower his guard.

"Hawaii," Conan replied without hesitation. "It was so much different from what I was used to, and I guess the fact that I learned a lot of things there gave it a special significance in my mind."

"Oh?" asked Vermouth, raising an eyebrow. "What sort of thing?"

"Driving, shooting…that sort of thing." Conan shot her a sideways glance and smirked. "But you just asked a question that you can't answer yourself."

"I noticed," Vermouth replied calmly, a smile tugging at her lips.

"You can't cheat like that, you know. You now owe me an answer to any question of my choice."

"Really?" Vermouth's single word was spoken in a tone that told Conan that she was not agreeing at all, but he was not about to give up that easily.

"Within boundaries," he suggested. He saw Vermouth purse her lips in thought out of the corner of his eyes.

"Very well," she finally replied. "Then what is that question going to be?"

Conan was taken aback—he had only seized the opportunity to ask any question of his choice (within boundaries), and had given no thought to _what _he wanted to ask. Vermouth, apparently, had seen right through this, for after a few seconds of silence, she shot a smirk his way.

"I'm saving it," Conan finally replied. Vermouth's eyes hardened, and Conan hastily continued. "I'll ask it at any point in the future when I want to, but not around anyone either of us knows." Vermouth turned to look at him, her eyes hard. Conan returned her look with steady eyes for a couple seconds before opening his mouth once more. "Unless you intend you get us both killed, I think you should turn your eyes back to the road," he suggested. Vermouth did not look away and her eyes remained unwavering. Conan, not about to lose, refused to turn his eyes away either. His racing heart and sense of self-preservation, however, protested violently, and he soon could not help it when his eyes flickered towards the road. Vermouth's eyes turned back to the road, a smile curling at the corners of her lips.

"This road is perfectly straight until we reach the city," she told him, the tiny smile still on her lips. Her smile chilled Conan to the bone. Not because it was particularly menacing or ominous—in fact, it was because her smile was the exact opposite of menacing or ominous. It was so natural that had he not known better, he would never have suspected her to be the cold-blooded killer that she was. The chill that ran down his spine was because this woman could act that well, and act like a perfectly normal woman despite the murderess that she was.

"Something bothering you, Cool Guy?" Vermouth asked. Her tone was serious now, and Conan was positive that she knew exactly what he had been thinking. That was another part of this woman that frightened him out of his wits—the way that she seemed to somehow know everything. He looked up, his eyes devoid of emotion.

"Why do you do it?" he asked calmly. The smile that had curled subtly at her lips returned to Vermouth's face.

"Using your question up so soon? I thought you were going to save it." Conan resisted the urge to huff childishly.

"Fine, don't answer then."

"Very well. I won't." The smile had widened on her face. This time, Conan couldn't stop the exasperated sigh that escaped him. He would probably never be able to ask her a single question again without calling on that answer that she owed him, he realized. Vermouth did not really strike him as the sort of person who liked being in debt. _Not, _he added to himself, _that I'll ever need to ask her at any point in the near future. I've gotten all the answers I need that she'll give. _He would have to figure out the rest on his own. He was absolutely positive that Vermouth would not answer the question 'who and where is your boss, who're the most powerful people in the organization, where are the members, and what's the organization's goal?' In addition, that was five questions in the guise of one. She could not possibly miss that. In addition, the only reason that he was talking to her at all was because he was tired, and needed some sort of distraction. He would not even consider conversing with her like this if it were not for the fact that he would fall fast asleep if he did not talk to her properly.

This was not the right thing to bring to mind. As soon as the thought crossed his mind, Conan found the forgotten tiredness return in a wave of sleepiness. Fighting back a yawn, he could not help wondering _why_ he was so tired. He had stayed up all night before. Why was it so different now? But he pushed that question aside. He needed more distraction.

"If you irritate everyone around you so much, how is it that you're so important in this organization?" he demanded, attempting to make his voice sound authoritative. Unfortunately, it did not come out as sharply as he had hoped, and Vermouth was not fooled. She shot him an amused glance.

"Why don't you just go to sleep? Or would you like to play a word game to help you stay awake?"

Now, Conan was a detective. In fact, his real self, Kudo Shinichi, was a _very _famous detective, and not one case touched by Kudo Shinichi was ever left unsolved. He had all but pledged his life to fighting crime, he was always against those who committed crime, and none of their reasons had yet swayed him. He put criminals in jail. He did not let them escape. He did not let them commit suicide. Even when they were someone he was close to, someone he admired, he did not let them get away. In short, even under the worst circumstances, he did notlet them elude prison where they belonged. And most of all, he certainly never _ever_ played with them. No matter how bad the circumstances. Let alone a _word game_. He did not even play such things with his friends in _second_ grade. They had grown out of playing such things in first grade, and even then, being the high schooler that he was, Conan had hated it. So playing a word game with a criminal was most certainly out of the question.

So it was when he spoke the words, "I think I'll take the word game," with as much dignity as was possible under such circumstances that he began to question his sanity. He was not _that_ tired…was he? He had stayed up for longer periods of time before, and after all, he still had yet to stay up for even twenty-four hours, which he knew his body could handle. So why, after barely twenty hours of being awake, was he resorting to a word game, let alone with a cold-blooded criminal, to keep himself awake?

Conan was so wrapped up in these bewildered, horrified thoughts that he failed to notice when the car jerked in response to his reply. He even failed to notice both of Vermouth's eyebrows shooting up as far as they could go as she shot a thoroughly shocked look his way before her face smoothed over to its usual unreadable state. Obviously, she had not been serious about the word game, but Conan did not notice, sunken in his misery at the state to which he had been reduced.

"Very well," Vermouth said, her tone only slightly mocking, "Why don't you start us off, then?"

"Narcissist," Conan said as seriously as he could. Meanwhile, he was thinking that he would need to get a brain scan once he got back.

"Telepathy," Vermouth replied.

Obviously, this would be a game much more stimulating than that of first graders, Conan realized. As he spoke the word "ytterbium", he gave a mental smile. This game would tear his dignity, but perhaps not as much as he had originally feared.

VVVVVVVVVV

Sato Miwako woke to the sound of her mother pounding on her bedroom door, shouting something about company. Groggily sitting up, she could not help but notice that, though she was a very early riser, it felt much too early to be getting up. She glanced at the window. The first sunrays were just leaking through the glass. It must have been about six-thirty in the morning.

"I'm up!" she shouted at her mother, slightly annoyed at the continuous pounding.

"Hurry and come downstairs!" her mother's voice replied from beyond the door impatiently. "There's a girl here to see you!" Then Miwako heard her mother's footsteps retreating down the hallway.

A girl? Miwako frowned at the thought. The only girls she knew were the two that were with Conan a lot of the time. All the other were women… Hastily getting up, she pulled on an ordinary sweatshirt and jeans and went out to meet the 'girl'. Sliding open the door to the living room, she started.

"Ran-chan!" she exclaimed, recognizing the high-schooler sitting beside her mother. Ran looked up and quickly stood and bowed.

"Detective Sato," she said. Her eyes were troubled, though her voice was steady, Miwako noticed. Miwako hastened to the girl's side as she saw her mother watching curiously out of the corner of her eye.

"Ran-chan," Miwako repeated, concerned. "What's wrong? Why are you here? And alone, too?"

"Well…" Ran's eyes shifted nervously. "Actually, it's quite a story. I'd probably have a hard time adjusting to it, but the idea isn't exactly new to me. And Dad couldn't come because…well, he doesn't actually know any of this."

Miwako raised her eyebrows, but Ran's eyes were fixed on her feet as she fidgeted, and failed to notice. Just as Miwako opened her mouth to ask exactly what 'any of this' was, Ran looked up, and her steady, determined gaze killed the words in Miwako's throat.

"If you don't mind, I'd like to talk to Detective Takagi about this, too, but no one else. Not even Inspector Megure. It's about Conan-kun and Shinichi…and quite a few other people, too." Miwako almost opened her mouth to ask Ran to be more specific, then decided against it.

"All right," she said instead. "I'll call Takagi-kun, and we'll arrange a place to meet where we can be relatively inconspicuous. How's that?" Ran heaved an audible sigh of relief as she nodded, her lips in a grateful smile. Miwako smiled back before continuing her words. "Just go to the door, get your shoes on and wait for me there. I just want to get a few things I might need."

Twenty minutes later, Miwako was sitting in a café of a department store with Ran, waiting for Takagi. Unfortunately, the man had a habit of being late, and she could not help drumming her fingers impatiently on the table as they waited. But just then, a man slipped into the third chair at the table. She stared at the shaggy-haired man for a moment before realizing that it was a wig.

"Takagi-kun?" she asked carefully. He looked up at her. "Why are you wearing that?"

"It was the only one I had at home," he replied promptly. She could tell, however, that he was hoping that she would not question any further. But Miwako was curious about the issue, and she saw no harm in asking the question.

"Yes, but why did you need a wig in the first place? It isn't as though we're on a top secret mission or anything, you know." Takagi's eyes darted left and right before he replied.

"Bad haircut," he finally managed. Miwako stared blankly, but Ran interrupted the conversation.

"Sorry, but my issue _is_ kind of serious." There was a sharp edge to the girl's voice, and Miwako hastily apologized, nudging Takagi to get him to do the same.

"I'm sure that you've both noticed that Conan-kun's rather smart for his age. Have you ever thought very much into that?" Miwako and Takagi exchanged a glance, and then Takagi spoke first.

"Well, naturally we've all noticed when we deal with a case with Conan-kun around. I can't imagine for the life of me what would be different about him, though."

"I've always thought him just a child prodigy," Miwako shrugged. "There really isn't any other explanation for it."

"What if he weren't actually a child?" Ran asked without hesitation. The two detectives stared. "Did either of you know," she continued carefully, "that the detective Kudo Shinichi went missing just a few hours before Conan-kun appeared in Shinichi's house with Professor Agasa?"

"Ran-chan," Miwako said gently after just a little hesitation. "I think you might be thinking too much. Why wouldn't he say so, then? And Conan-kun doesn't actually do the solving—he's just a little genius at finding and noticing things that we miss."

"I don't think that that's quite accurate," Takagi countered slowly. Miwako turned to him in surprise. His brow was furrowed and there was a thoughtful look on his face. "I think that most of the time, Conan-kun has the solution before any of us. Have you noticed that when he gives a hint, he tends to want it to be taken one way, and he gets a little annoyed if it isn't? And that time I was stuck with him in the elevator, he knew almost everything about that bomb just by glancing at it once. And…" Takagi hesitated, and then shook his head as he continued. "I could have _sworn_ that he was managing to take apart that bomb without even listening to the instructions. I mean, just from the sounds coming from up there… Never mind," he hastily added when he noticed his two female companions staring at him, "I was probably just imagining everything."

"He's right," Ran told Miwako, who was now intrigued. "When I think back now, I can hardly believe that we all missed as much as we did. But three men came in the middle of the night-"

"Is this going to be confidential sort of information?" Miwako asked, her tone now completely businesslike. Ran blinked in surprise.

"Yes, I suppose. I mean, lives in danger, hostages, a secret criminal organization…that sort of thing." Takagi stared, but Miwako stood.

"All right, then," she said, her tone brisk. "We can't talk here. We'll go to the headquarters and see if they can't lend us a soundproof room."

"But," Ran protested, "I really don't want too many people…" She trailed off, looking to Takagi and back to Miwako desperately. Miwako smiled reassuringly.

"Don't worry. We'll tell them it's something minor, like a theft. That way Takagi-kun and I can work on this through the day without interruption." Takagi frowned at Miwako's confident words.

"But Sato-san?" he addressed her doubtfully. "That's not the way things are supposed to work. They could decide to set someone else to the job."

"All we have to say is that Ran requested us," Miwako smiled. "Don't worry. I can get them to listen." And then she was walking towards the exit. Ran and Takagi hastened to follow.

VVVVVVVVVV

The sun had risen by the time they reached the junction where one had to go right to get to the Professor's house. Conan's watch read five to seven. Vermouth stopped and looked at him expectantly.

"I didn't think it would take so long," growled Conan. Vermouth looked unconcerned as she replied.

"It really isn't my fault the car broke down," she said, and her voice was cold again.

There's_ the stone-cold ruthless murderess,_ Conan almost rejoiced. No more confusion. He could not have asked for more at that particular moment.

"Get out, or I'll be obligated to do my duty to my boss," Vermouth said. Her voice was cold, her eyes hard and expressionless.

Now that he was at his destination, however, Conan had made up his mind. In a split second, he had shot the sleep gun at the woman beside him. In that same second, she had snatched the scarf that he had hardly noticed from around her neck, and with a slight flick of her wrist, had the thin needle in the scarf rather than her forehead. Calmly removing it from the thick material, she reached out to Conan with it.

"Want to try again?" she invited, a fearless, confident smile on her face. Just before the needle reached him, it struck Conan that she could pretend to hand it back to him and prick his finger.

He had already opened the lock on his door, so he had opened the door and leapt out in a split second. Vermouth's smile widened.

"No? Very well—thank you for the gift, Cool Guy." And then the door was closed and she was off. Conan groaned—he had no doubt that she would wrap the needle in something and keep it with her. It was only a matter of seconds before he either died or was put to sleep the next time he met her. Sighing unhappily, the boy made his way down the street.

As he walked, he turned his mind to happy thoughts: he could soak in a nice, warm bath and ease the aching in his tense muscles, and then eat his full before he went to a soft bed and slept to his heart's content. The thoughts made him sigh contentedly as he rang the doorbell. He waited patiently for someone to come and open the door. When no one did, he tried the door. It was locked.

Conan frowned. That was strange. They were still gone? Sighing in resignation, he now knew for sure that the Professor had called his cell phone. Whether or not the man or woman had answered, Professor Agasa had certainly realized that something was wrong. Then he had probably tried to deduce Conan's location through the tracker in his glasses and been alarmed when they did not appear anywhere. But surely the button-shaped trackers would have told him-

Looking down at his buttons, Conan abruptly halted the thought and let his head fall to the door with a dull _thump_. The trackers were gone. When the car had broken down in the middle of the roads around half past four, both he and Vermouth had inspected the engine. He was sure that that was the only time that they had been close enough that she could have stolen them without his noticing. Now the Professor—and Haibara, who was probably with him—would drive around for hours, following Vermouth.

The worst part, he realized, was that he would now have to return to the Mouri Detective Agency. By now, occhan and Ran's tempers had probably cooled down, but he doubted that he would get away without giving a good explanation. And, unfortunately, he was too tired to think of some sort of plausible lie. If he went there, it was inevitable that Ran and her father learn the truth. Perhaps he should just sit there and sleep.

No, he decided. He would return. He was too tired to deal with much anyway, so perhaps they would let him sleep before they questioned him. If they did, then he would have more chance of getting away.

So Conan turned and walked out of Professor Agasa's driveway and toward the residence of Detective Mouri Kogoro and his daughter.

VVVVVVVVVV

There was a long silence in the small, whitewashed room. Takagi was staring at Ran wide-eyed, and Sato's eyes were narrowed as she tapped her fingers together. Ran resisted the urge to fidget nervously in the uncomfortable silence.

"Well," Detective Sato finally said quietly, "I must say, this is unexpected."

"That's quite an understatement, Sato-san," Detective Takagi replied quietly, a shaky smile on his face. Then the smile disappeared in seriousness. "But it does explain quite a bit. Now that I think back, it feels almost amazing that none of us ever suspected anything like this. All those unexplained crimes, Conan-kun's strange behavior… All of it."

"It defies a lot of laws of logic," Sato replied with a small smile. "It isn't really the sort of thing that generally crosses one's mind. And this Organization…" Her eyes grew hard. "We'll have to be very careful. If this is true—and we have to remember, it might not be—then it's very good, since no police force has ever even suspected its presence. That means that the members are very intelligent—and dangerous."

"I don't believe that Shinichi—Conan-kun—would ever work for crime," Ran said, her voice cold and her eyes hard. "He'd die before he did something like that. He's in danger." Takagi's eyes softened sympathetically, but Sato spoke carefully.

"Ran-chan…" Sato's voice was gentle. "You haven't seen Kudo-kun in quite a long time, I believe."

"He wouldn't," Ran said flatly without even waiting for Sato to finish. "I know him. I've known him since before I can remember. Since before we could even talk, I think—our mothers are friends. He'd never do anything like that, and no matter how much evidence points that way, no matter how many people believe he is, I won't believe it for a second." There was a challenge in her eyes, and Sato decided against trying to persuade her otherwise, and instead smiled.

"We should probably start by talking to Conan-kun and Professor Agasa as well as that other girl, right?" Takagi asked, businesslike. "They could deny or confirm anything he says."

"Conan-kun is probably at Professor Agasa's house, I think," Ran supplied. "Should I call them?"

"That's a good idea," Sato agreed. "Why don't we arrange to meet somewhere?"

Ran took out her cell phone and called the Professor's home. She frowned when she received the answering machine and tried again. When she once again was answered by only the answering machine, she called Shinichi's cell phone number before she even thought about what she was doing. As it rang, she realized that it was silly to call him. If she called the number that she knew was Conan's, she could at least tell him to meet somewhere before they discussed the issue. With Shinichi, she could only confront him directly over the phone. Feeling very stupid, she almost hung up when she heard the answering machine. Ran frowned. It had rung, so the phone was on. Then why was he not answering?

Ran furrowed her brow and thought back. Conan usually carried the normal cell phone around in a pocket, but when he left the house, she knew that he had not carried it with him. Hesitating, she tried the cell phone number that Conan had given her. It rang a few times, and then stopped mid-ring. Ran almost smiled. At least she could contact someone.

But her relief lasted for less than a second. Before she could even open her mouth to speak, an angry adult male yelled in her ear.

"Stop calling over and over again, jijii(1)!" Ran jumped a foot into the air, her eyes wide in surprise. The man's voice was gruff and loud enough that Detectives Sato and Takagi heard as well. They were staring at her, wide-eyed. "I told you, we don't know where that kid of yours is! You have the wrong number!" She heard a woman begin to speak in the background just before the line went dead. Slowly lowering the phone from her ear, she checked the number on the screen of her cell phone. It was definitely Conan's number.

Ran hardly noticed when her body began to tremble and her face turned white. She looked up at the man and woman before her.

"Someone has Conan-kun," she said, and despite everything else, her voice was steady. "I can't reach Professor Agasa or Shinichi. …Do you think I should call Dad?" The last question was asked very hesitantly, as if she thought that her two companions would object. However, Sato nodded without hesitation.

"It could very well be that he just dropped his cell phone somewhere and someone picked it up, Ran-chan. For all we know, he could have gone back to your house after he found the Professor gone—you did call his home, right?"

Nodding, Ran dialed the Mouri Detective Agency. Her only response was the answering machine, so she tried her father's cell phone twice. Both times, she only received another answering machine.

Ran was so shaken at that point that she did not even consult the detectives before dialing her mother's number at the law firm. It was a relief with her mother's secretary, Kuriyama-san, was the one to answer rather than another answering machine. At least there was still someone she knew left that she could contact.

"Hello, Kuriyama-san? This is Ran."

"Oh, Ran-chan! I haven't heard from you in a while. Have you been well?" It was still more relieving to hear the warm words of recognition with which the kind woman replied.

"I'm well, thank you. I know that it's a little early, but is Mom in yet?"

"Actually," she could almost hear her mother's secretary frown, "she was in, but almost as soon as she got here, she got a phone call on her private line, and was gone even faster than she'd come in. I have no idea who called or where she went, but she looked quite shaken…"

"Thank you," Ran forced out before hanging up. She took a few deep breaths before looking at the detectives, whose expressions were seriously and genuinely concerned. "Professor Agasa isn't home. Shinichi isn't answering his cell phone. Some strange man has Conan-kun's cell phone. Dad isn't at the agency and isn't answering his cell phone. Mom entered the office, but received a call on her private line and left almost immediately." She did not mention that it seemed that everyone she knew had dropped off the face of the planet.

Detective Sato stepped forward and embraced her comfortingly. The trembles that she had not noticed gradually, and she felt her racing heart slow. Taking deep breaths, she calmed herself before pulling away from Detective Sato and giving her and her partner a reassuring smile.

"Don't worry, I'm fine," she told them genuinely. She could not afford not to be fine. There was a chance that her father had called her mother's private line and then run off without his cell phone when he had noticed that she was gone and the office open, but there was also a chance that something worse had happened. It could be that Professor Agasa, Ai-chan and Conan-kun had all simply gone off on a drive, and Conan-kun had dropped his cell phone, which had been picked up by a bad-tempered passerby. But there was also the chance that they had been abducted. She had to stand strong—for her parents and friends, but mostly for Shinichi. She was almost positive that Akisawa had told the truth about Shinichi and Conan-kun being one and the same. But now people apparently believed that he was working for a criminal organization, and just as she had told the two detectives, never would she believe that Shinichi would do such a thing. That was a conviction that she would carry, never once wavering, to the grave. So she needed to be strong for him, no matter how he may have lied to her. He would pay for his lies, but at that moment, he needed her support more than her anger, and that was what she would give.

"So what should we start with?" Ran asked. "We could try and figure out what happened to Mom or Dad, or the Professor and Ai-chan or Conan-kun…"

"We should probably start with Conan-kun," Detective Takagi replied, almost at once. "We know most about what happened to him."

"Yes," agreed Sato. "You said that he left right after supper?" Ran nodded. "Then he probably headed for the Professor's house…unless there's anyone else you can think of that he wouldn't mind barging in on at such an awkward hour?" Ran shook her head. "Good. Then we can be almost positive of where he was headed. We'll go to the Professor's house first." Just as Sato was about to stand, Takagi spoke.

"Just in case, hadn't we ought to check if anything happened last night along a route between the two places? There is a chance that he never actually reached his destination, in which case the Professor might have gone looking for him."

"That's true," Ran replied thoughtfully. "Detective Sato, is there any way that you could ask about that without seeming particularly suspicious?"

"Of course," the older woman replied at once. "Then we'll check if anything's happened first. If something has, then we'll go there. If we don't hear of anything significant, we'll head for the Professor's house." Ran and Takagi agreed and stood. The three of them left the room, Sato in the lead.

Instead of leading them toward the exit, she led them down a few hallways to a certain desk in a large crowded room.

"Miwa-chan," the man at the desk greeted her with a smile. "In so early today?"

"Actually, I'm already on a case," Sato replied, returning his smile. "I just wanted to know if anything happened last night in Beika City." The man's brow furrowed.

"Beika City? Actually…" he began slowly. Then he turned to his computer and began typing, continuing his words as he did. "I know there was one thing. Just a few streets down from Mouri Detective Agency, actually. A trunk fell from the roof of an apartment building, almost on top of some small kid… Ah!" he said triumphantly, finding the page he wanted. "Yeah, a trunk fell from the roof of a seven storey apartment building. It was stuffed with bricks when they managed to break the lock and open it, and it appears to have been dropped by cutting a rope that had secured it in place on the roof. It's suspected to be a calculated murder attempt. According to two witnesses that we were able to find, it almost fell on a small kid, but he jumped out of the way at the last moment. Additionally, one said that the kid glanced up once before darting into the building. No fingerprints or any other source of identification have been found for either the kid or the one who dropped the trunk. And…apart from that, Beika City was quite peaceful last night." He looked up with a smile. Sato smiled back (though, Ran noticed, it was a half-hearted attempt), thanked him, and then quickly left with her two companions.

"I think I know which building he was talking about," Ran said in a low voice as they walked, their steps quick. "The ground floor is a grocery store, and the higher floors are apartments. He'd pass by it to get to Professor Agasa's house…"

"We'll go in my car," Sato told the other two. "It's faster, and it might be a good idea to hurry."

At that moment, a figure in blue appeared, as if out of nowhere, and stood before them. The tall man's eyes swept over the group of three, and then settled on Sato as he spoke.

"Is something the matter?" asked Inspector Shiratori calmly. Sato smiled at him.

"No, not really," Sato replied lightly. "Actually, Ran-chan here thought that someone might have stolen something last night—it isn't anything serious." Shiratori's narrowed eyes were calculating as they looked carefully at each of the three. Ran nodded when his eyes met hers, and was relieved to note that even Detective Takagi gave no indication that it was a lie.

"Then I believe that I should accompany you," Shiratori said finally. "Detective Takagi, you may stay here—with Detective Mouri's residence involved, this could require more experience." Ran panicked at these words, and spoke before the decision could be finalized.

"Actually," said Detective Sato, speaking first, "I think it would be better if Takagi-kun came. Ran-chan is concerned, but Detective Mouri isn't actually involved—it's one of Ran-chan's friends." Here Ran smiled and nodded, as if this had been so all along. "It isn't anything serious—there isn't even any proof that there even _was_ a theft. I think it would be better if you stayed and worked on the more important cases." For a moment, it looked like Shiratori would protest, and then his eyes flickered to Ran before he nodded in agreement.

"You're right. There actually was a strange incident—involving a trunk being dropped from a seven-floor building, apparently an attempted murder of a small child. Very strange, especially since both the child and the trunk-dropper disappeared. I believe I'll look into that. Now, if you'll excuse me…" And then with a bow, he was walking away.

"We'll have to hurry," whispered Sato. "If he finds us there, I don't think we can hold him off again for you, Ran-chan."

"I know," Ran nodded. "I do know a back way to the building—to the residents' parking lot. The police will probably park at the front, since that's where the trunk dropped." Sato and Takagi stared at the high schooler.

"How do you know where it dropped?" asked Takagi. Ran smiled with a slight blush.

"There're balconies at the back, and the sides are so close to other buildings that there's hardly room for a person in there. It can't be anywhere but the side facing the sidewalk."

"I see…" said Sato thoughtfully. "But we'll still have to hurry—we can't be on the crime scene once Shiratori-kun gets there." She began to walk as she spoke, closely followed by Takagi and Ran.

None of them noticed Shiratori standing only a short way behind them, watching them with shrewd eyes as they walked quickly away down the hall.

(1) jijii – an impolite way of referring to an old man or one's grandfather.

**Replies to reviews:**

**Ice-Song **– That sounds interesting… Have you written it? I don't really have time right now, but I'll look at your profile after I post this chapter!

**Basser** – Oh yes. Conan will certainly be a wreck. …I really hope you didn't mind my using your idea without asking permission first… I mean, I knew before I read your review that I wanted Conan and Vermouth to play some sort of game in one of Conan's attempts to stay awake, and then after I read your review I had a dream with Conan and Vermouth playing that word game, and just thought it was so perfect that I decided to use it. And that was just yesterday (yes, this only had the beginning about Ran for over a month before I actually got around to writing the rest), and I wanted to get this up as soon as possible because of the whole delay… I really hope I didn't offend you. Now, about Ran finding out: actually, I considered not letting Ran find out until Shinichi decides to tell her in the end, but then decided that I liked the idea of having multiple people's stories go this way and that, and not all tie together until the end (or somewhere in that general area). And Ran is in an ideal position to make an interesting story that way.

**Night's Nocturne** – Not all that soon, no. It'll be some time before Conan becomes Shinichi again (at least, that's what I'm planning at the moment. My plans have a tendency to twist and turn as I go along). Of course the Detective Boys will make their appearance! And I think their timing's going to be even worse than Heiji's…

**SN 1987A** – Thanks! I'm actually trying to put in twists that I haven't seen in DC fan fiction before. Of course, I haven't read them all (nor do I want to), so chances are I'm using something that someone else has already used… I hope I manage to get _some_ unique touches in here, though.

**DCDetective **– Here's the update—did you enjoy it?

_A/N: Really! Six reviews? That's it? I'm ashamed of you, readers… (shakes head reprovingly) Remember, the more reviews I get, the longer the next chapter! Which, by the way, I am going to have the time of my life writing. This chapter was definitely fun (at least, the interaction between Vermouth and Conan was), but I'll have even more fun in the next one. (Actually, I'm perfectly happy with six reviews. After all, you people get the shorter chapters by not reviewing.)_

_Just one more thing: I've never read Magic Kaito, but I know a general overview of his, Aoko's and Akako's characters. But would you please tell me three things: Kaito's history with the Organization, why Kaito seeks the Pandora, and what magical/other sort of properties the Pandora is supposed to have? I really need this information—I won't get more than one or two chapters past this without it._


	7. Perilous Buildings

Thanks to Basser, YumeTakato, and watashi wa jeru desu for the information on Kaito and the Pandora!

A second and very large thank you to Basser for the first work of fan art that any of my stories has ever received! It can be viewed at img84.imageshack.us/img84/7554/shiritorixm2.jpg.

**Perilous Danger**

**Chapter 6:Perilous Buildings**

_Where _is _everybody?_ Conan wondered as he walked back to the Professor's house. The Mouri Detective Agency had been open—both the door and a window—but there was no one there, and no one was answering the door in the residential apartment above the agency, either. He had gone to a payphone, but no one picked up, nor was there any answer when he had tried calling occhan's phone. He had tried Ran's three times, but it was busy every time. So he had tried the Professor, both his house and his cell phone, but no one picked up either. In desperation, he had called Ran's mother, but she was not there, either.

Conan was generally a very calm, collected person, but at this particular moment, he was feeling thoroughly shaken. Where _was_ everybody? It was as though they had all simply…dropped off the face of the planet. What if Ran had been kidnapped? What if, despite all his efforts to keep silent so that she would be safe, they had taken her after all, just because they knew that she was precious to him? But Vermouth had said that she would do nothing of that sort until passed the night of the full moon. Then again, what if the Organization didn't agree with her plans and had acted on their own? The thought chilled him to the bones, and he could only hope with all his heart that Ran was safe and sound somewhere. If not safe and sound, at _least_ alive and unharmed.

But Conan also knew that he could not simply running around looking for her. If she was, indeed, taken by the Organization, he would do better not to alert them to where he was. So he had decided to try the Professor's house once more. Which was why he was now walking towards the Professor's house as rapidly as he could. Clouds were gathering in the sky—clouds so dark that they were almost black. He did not particularly welcome the idea of getting soaked in the rain. If that happened, he was almost certain to catch a cold-

Conan stopped. Had he just sniffed? Now that he thought about it, his nose did feel rather stuffy. Had he been so caught up in other thoughts that he had not noticed that he had the sniffles for a while? And was it just his imagination, or did his throat actually feel a little scratchy?

When he coughed, he knew. He had a cold already. That was why he had been more tired that he ought to have felt. _The cold,_ he thought wryly as he began to walk again with a small sniffle, _probably accounts for my lack of observation power as of late, too. I can't _believe_ I didn't even notice that I had a cold._

However, Fate apparently decided—unfortunately for Conan—that he had had enough time to be lax. For before he could berate himself or ponder the matter any further, a heavy blow caught him on the back of his head. Staggering forward, Conan saw stars. What little power of reasoning—or even thinking—left in his tired mind flew away, and the boy barely even registered what was happening to him.

Conan slowly and dimly decided that he was not unconscious. He had been unconscious before, and he had then been unable to feel or hear, but his mind had worked without any trouble. Now, however, while his mind seemed to move slower than a snail, he could feel the large arm wrap around his middle, and felt it when he was tossed onto something soft. The impact threw his head off the ledge where his body fell, and he felt nauseous and dizzy. Forcing his mind to rouse, he shoved it into motion. Though it remained difficult, he found that he could reclaim possession of his power of reasoning as long as he ignored the mind numbing aching of his head. The first thing he did was to move his head back onto the soft surface that he instinctively knew was a car seat as he heard doors slam and the engine start up.

He was kidnapped. Again. To make matters worse, the dizziness and nausea had lessened, but were still there. Conan shoved the pain firmly away. He needed to observe his captor. He turned his eyes to the side to at least look at the person through a reflection in one of the mirrors or windows. Conan instantly snapped his eyes shut with a wince as small as he could manage as he resisted the urge to bring his hands up to cover his face.

When he had turned his eyes to look out from the side, a sharp, blinding pain had shot through his head. But he refused to make a sound or movement. He would let his captor think that he was still unconscious. Perhaps if he slowly turned to the side, they wouldn't notice the movement… He was just about to speak when he heard a voice, and froze in place.

"So, we got the kid." The voice was very low and gruff—probably a man in his fifties or sixties, decided Conan. "Anything else we're supposed to do?" It was no voice that he recognized. Then another voice spoke.

"She said that a girl would be with him," said the other voice. This one was also a man, but his voice sounded much younger—like a young man in his twenties. Conan did not recognize this voice, either. "But there wasn't any girl with him. Think we should just leave?"

"Probably," replied the gruff voice. "She'll be mad either way anyhow."

There was a jerk and the car began to move, but Conan's slowly working mind was on other things. 'She'? It couldn't be the woman who had been in the team that had kidnapped him previously—for all they knew, he was still in the forest, and they didn't want any girl. What other woman did he know? Not Ran, surely… _Oh yes,_ he suddenly remembered, and mentally swore. _It's Vermouth, of course. I can't _believe _this! I can't believe that she didn't come to mind straight away! I really must have hit my head hard. And I can't believe she'd play such a dirty trick! I honestly can't _believe_ that I can't believe that she'd trick me!_

Conan realized that, despite the constant chant that he had kept up in his mind, he had fully and wholly trusted Vermouth on the issue of leaving him alone until the night of the full moon. He had succeeded at keeping himself on guard, but he had not even realized the trust that he held for his very enemy in that one issue. He could not believe it. He, Detective Kudo Shinichi, genius high school detective with no unsolved cases, had trusted a criminal. Twelve hours ago—no, even _six_ hours ago—he would never have believed that he could sink this far. And he hated the woman all the more for it.

She was sure to have noticed when his guard fell. How could she not have, being as shrewd and sharp as she was? Conan could just imagine Vermouth after she had driven away, laughing her head off at how easy it had been to break through the detective's guard. He silently cursed her in every way he knew. Then that note had probably all been set up, too. But what had it been, if it was set up? A trick to get him to give over his handwriting so that they could forge something in his handwriting?

_Well, _he thought wryly, _at least I only trusted her on a few issues. It isn't as though she broke through all my defenses._ But the thought was not much comfort. He had thought that he was better than that. _Maybe after all this is over, I _should_ go live with Mom and Dad._ That was a thought that he instantly discarded as a burning heat rapidly bubbled up within his chest. _I'm not quitting because one murderess lured me into her trap once. This isn't the first time that I've been fallen into a criminal's trap, but I've always managed to get the better of them in the end. She _will_ pay,_ thought Conan vehemently. But no one worked well when angry, and he knew that he had to calm himself before even considering dealing with her. Then, though it remained sizzling as he did, he pushed his anger away and continued to listen to the conversation.

"-Her, anyway?" the younger man was saying.

"Since when does she tell _me_ that sort of thing?" snapped the older man in reply. This was followed by silence. Once Conan was sure that they were not going to start talking again any time soon, he turned his focus to attempting to see them: his head was pounding so much that even as he ignored it as much as was possible, he really did not feel like attempting two things at the same time, even if those two things were merely looking and listening.

He slowly turned his head, and saw that a young man was sitting in the passenger seat. He could not see much of the man, but he saw no need for close inspection once he knew which person sat where. He closed his eyes and thought. What did he have with him? He had not brought the skateboard, the glasses were broken, he had left the suspenders in his previous captors' trunk, and those same previous captors had his cell phone. He still had his watch, but it was now only good for telling time and as a light, since the murdering, thieving fiend had the needle. His brain was not functioning as it should—he would probably need a doctor later. That left the bowtie and the shoes. Anything else? There was his belt, he suddenly remembered. But that would not be of much help, since he did not particularly feel up to kicking anything unless necessary. Making himself something extra to kick was out of the question.

Thinking slowly to keep his brain from malfunctioning (more than it already was, anyway), he formulated a simple plan. It was malfunctioning-brain-proof. He slowly brought his hands up to the base of his neck. After making sure that his captors had not noticed, he began turning the knob, finding the right voice. Whenever the pounding headache made its way into his conscious mind, he shoved it away. He had enough to deal with. When he was finally sure that he had found the right voice, he took in a slow, deep breath and shouted.

"Stop!" Oops—wrong voice. The voice that shouted was that of the older man. But it worked. The car skidded to a halt as the older man's voice shouted an exclamation of surprise, and Conan sprang up, twisting the knob on his sneaker as he did. He aimed a kick at the window. He missed and kicked the metal of the door just below the window. A sharp pain shot through his foot, and he could not stop the cry of pain that escaped him. But the impact was enough to shatter the window anyway. Conan, grimacing as he attempted to ignore the pain, leaped out the window.

He found himself on the street just next to the sidewalk. The street was wide, and there were tall buildings on either side. Behind him, he heard his captors give a shout and began to run. Conan knew that they would catch up on their longer legs if he did not find a way to keep them away from him—quickly. He tried to turn his eyes, forgetting the pain that that action had caused last time he had tried it. The same sharp pain shot through his head, and he staggered and stumbled. It was only by sheer power of will that he managed to not fall down and keep running. The black blotches in his already blurry vision made the situation very difficult, but he made out a dark alleyway between the buildings to his left. He ran straight until the last minute, and then suddenly turned and disappeared into the alleyway without a warning.

His vision was still blurry, but the blotches were clearing away. He made out a dark door on the building to his right, but it was on the other side of a very tall fence. For a moment, he thought that he should go back, but when he turned he heard the men's voices and remembered exactly _why _he was running and_ why _he could not turn back. Turning back again, he began climbing the fence. This, unfortunately, did not turn out to be as good an idea as he had originally planned. His legs had barely supported him while he was running. His arms were weaker than his legs, and his arms and legs needed to work much harder than when running in order to climb the fence. Conan narrowed his eyes and forced himself to climb. He reached the top and sat on the top bar, lifting his legs over to the other side gingerly and as quickly as he could manage.

The fence jiggled, and Conan fell without even a chance to give a cry of surprise. The ground came closer and closer, and then with a hard thud, he found himself on the ground again. At first he felt only the splitting pain that had shot through his head at the jolt of his landing. Then he began to feel the pain in his hands and knees that started from nothing and rapidly intensified. For a moment, he could not move, and almost collapsed all the way on the ground. Then he heard the men's voices and the jingling of the fence as they began to climb. Looking up, he saw that the door was not actually very far ahead.

Standing, Conan ran on wobbly legs to the door. He turned the doorknob and pulled. It opened, and he went inside and closed it behind him. He wondered if the men had seen where he had come. After a few seconds, he realized that there was a very small chance that they had not seen him enter this building. With that realization, he turned right down the hallway that stretched in either direction and took refuge in a random room to his right.

It was only after he entered the room that he realized that he _probably _wasn't supposed to be in this building, and it was _very likely_ a good idea to try to avoid being seen. He scanned the room he had entered nervously. It was very small—no more than a meter one way and two meters the other. _This is a closet,_ he finally noticed. His heart was beginning to slow, and as it did, he began to feel less worried about his pursuers and more about the long amount of time it was taking for his brain to process things properly. As he noticed this, he became aware of the acute pounding in his head that he had forcefully shoved out of his mind. He thought that he would pass out from that pain—however, he knew that he could not. The unconscious state was a state of vulnerability, and that was not something that he could risk in his current position.

He carefully turned around to look at the contents of the room that he now knew was a closet to see if there was anything that would come in handy. The bottom shelf was full of large cardboard boxes. Above that was a shelf lined with small boxes in an orderly fashion. Above that, there appeared to be a few more shelves, but Conan was too short to see that well and looking up only made his head spin all the more, so he did not bother trying very hard. He pulled out a box from the bottom. To his disappointment, it was still taped shut and looked as though it had never been open. When he peeked in at the others, it seemed that they were all sealed shut as well.

So Conan, with effort, pulled out two boxes that were already stacked. He moved the top one aside very slightly so that it was still stable, but a small ledge was formed on the bottom box. Using this ledge, he hoisted his now-shaking body up onto the top box and looked at the upper shelf.

When he pulled out one of the plastic boxes and opened it, he found that it was layered from top to bottom with plastic trays, each of which was divided into four sections. Each section was filled with some amount of tablets. Conan's brow furrowed. Had he perhaps found his way into some sort of medical clinic or hospital? Maybe there was some sort of painkiller among the tablets…

However, to his dismay, upon closer inspection, each section was only labeled with a paper card that had a series of random-seeming letters and numbers for each tablet. He lifted the top tray to see the one below it, and then that one as well, but all three layers were the same with only variations in the tablets' colors and the cryptic names of letters and numbers. Sighing, he closed the box. The pain in his head seemed to be numbing, for he found that his thoughts were slightly clearer than before.

Then his vision went black and he felt his body tip backwards.

VVVVVVVVVV

"Oh my God… Oh my _God_…"

Ran was breathing heavily as she muttered under her breath. Her hands were over her mouth, and she found that she was having trouble breathing. It had been bad enough when she had seen the cracks in the sidewalk that had been made when the trunk was dropped. Even Detective Sato had seemed to turn a little paler at the sight. It was not as though anyone had been hurt, naturally. It was just that, in those cracks in the solid ground of concrete, one could feel the will to kill. That had been bad enough. But now…

"Are you absolutely _sure_ that it was the same boy?" Detective Takagi asked the old man that they were talking to. Takagi's eyes were serious, his face grim. However, the look of confusion that had been with him ever since they had met up five minutes before remained in his eyes, faint though it was.

"Sure," shrugged the man. He sounded rather worked up. "I'll repeat it all if you don't believe me: I live in the apartment on the third floor that has a window at the far corner facing this street, and another on the corner on the other side, facing the parking lot. This evening I was smoking, and I always do that out the window that looks over the street, since there's more interesting things to see from there-"

"That's all right, you don't need to repeat yourself," Detective Sato cut in hastily, after shooting a worried look at the pale Ran. But the man's story was already running through the teenager's flooded mind. Every word sounded as clear as if he were retelling it.

"So, I was just watching the cars go by and the people walking when I noticed a little boy. You really can't blame me for noticing him—it was already dark out, and normally boys his age aren't allowed out at that time of night. Then suddenly he looked up and jumped back. A second later, a trunk came hurtling down, right where he would have been! I couldn't believe it—I thought that boy was going to start crying or something, but that was the last thing he did. Can you guess what he did? He glanced up at the building, and next thing I knew, he was running into the store!" Ran knew in some small part of her mind that she was just remembering it, and that it wasn't good for her to let her memory tell her everything all over again. She could hear the man's drawling voice, and his excited tone. How could anyone be _excited_ about this? The hand over her mouth was trembling. "So I waited to see if he'd come out again. But he didn't, and I thought that maybe he was scared and was calling his Mama from the store, y'know? So I threw my cigarette out the window and closed it. Went to my bedroom. But then I heard a car screech—my bedroom's the room with the window over the parking lot, see. So I wondered what anyone was doing in the parking lot, driving so fast so late. I knew it wasn't anyone from the building. We're all old folk here. We don't drive crazy anymore. I looked out the window then, and who should I see but that very same little boy! He was dodging a car that seemed determined to kill him. And you'd think that a little boy with a car shooting straight at him no matter how he runs would be scared out of his wits, right? But he wasn't! Hell, I don't know if I've ever seen anyone act so calm and calculating in danger like that! He was even being _strategic_! But of course, it's just plain cruel to try to kill a child like that, so I put on my dressing robe and went down to the parking lot. The car'd left the parking lot at that point, and the little boy was just walking back. But then he suddenly looked to the side, behind the wall at the side of the parking lot gate, and then I saw someone stuff him into a bag and run off. By the time I reached the gate, the car that'd been parked down the road was already driving off. Wow, I've never even _dreamed_ of such a kidnapping!"

Ran held back a sob. She had been spending her time searching for Shinichi, and when she had time to just sit, she had been thinking about how she was going to absolutely _kill _him for keeping so much secret from her—for going to such lengths to do so. But now, what if when they actually found him, he was dead? What then?

_No,_ Ran told herself firmly, alarmed to feel tears ready to leak from her eyes. _I won't cry. Shinichi's in trouble—we know that for sure now. He needs someone to help him—not someone moping around about what _could _have happened to him._ Reprehending herself firmly, she took a few deep breaths. _I _will _stay calm. I won't lose my cool again until I find Shinichi and I know that he's safe._

"Did you see where that car went?" she asked calmly. Detective Sato looked at Ran. Her voice was calm and collected, but her face was slightly pale. Sato could see her hands tremble slightly even as she clasped them, trying to stop.

The old man shrugged in response to Ran's question.

"No idea. Must've gone straight down that road, though. Didn't see it turn."

"Thank you," Ran thanked him politely with a small bow. Then she glanced at Detective Sato, who nodded in reply to her unspoken question. Ran was just about to turn when she suddenly froze, staring at something further along the road. She reached out and grabbed Detective Takagi's sleeve as he was beginning to head back towards the car. "Look," she said quietly, her eyes fixed on an approaching car. "Isn't that Inspector Shiratori?"

The two detectives accompanying her hastily turned.

"It is," Sato said. "Quick, to the parking lot." Even as she spoke, she was pushing Ran and Takagi at the glass doors of the grocery store, deaf to Takagi's nervous words of needing to speak with her before they left. The doors slid open and they rushed in. Ran in the lead, the two women hurried through the store, into the door that led to the main entrance of the residency, and then out the building into the parking lot. Only Takagi stopped to apologize to the surprised workers in the store before running after the two women.

"Wait!" he called as he hurried after them. "I-"

"It can wait until we're in the car, Takagi-kun," said Detective Sato briskly as she swiftly unlocked the car door. "The more I hear about this, the less I want Shiratori-kun involved." Then she got into the driver's seat and started the car even as Ran and Takagi got in. The latter looked quite reluctant as he got into the passenger seat, but he complied all the same and did so silently.

"So, what did you find out?" Sato asked once they were driving out of the parking lot. They had all split up and investigated separately, agreeing to meet on the sidewalk in front of the grocery store after a certain amount of time. Detective Sato had been in charge of questioning the residents of the apartment building, and had brought the old man with her.

"Well, it was most certainly a deliberate attempt on Conan-kun's life." Takagi said. He had been in charge of investigating the roof, from where the trunk had been dropped. "But that wasn't what I wanted to say. Sato-san, we really need to go back—there's a bomb set up in that building."

There was a silence that lasted for about three seconds. Then the car screeched to a halt.

"There's a _what?_" cried Sato, turning to look straight at Takagi. "Are you sure?"

"There's no doubt about it, Sato-san." He hesitated, and then turned to look at Ran in the back seat. "Ran-san, I'm going to go back. To tell you the truth…we have no idea where those people took Conan-kun, and it could be almost anywhere. Besides, he's managed to work his way out of worse situations before. And there's no telling how long it'll take to _find _the bomb, let alone take it apart…" Takagi trailed off. Sato looked at him through narrowed eyes.

"Wait. Takagi-kun, you didn't actually see the bomb?" Takagi shook his head at Sato's question.

"No. But I know it's there," he added hastily, reaching into his pocket. "I wasn't sure whether to show this to you—it could have been forged, after all. I just can't help but feel that it's real, though." Takagi pulled a folded piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to Ran. She opened it and read it. Then she read it again. Her face paled even further.

"This is Shinichi's handwriting. I know it is. And the wording is his, too." Ran's voice was firm. She looked at Takagi after a moment of silence. "Then he's alive?"

"Well…" he started hesitantly. Then he sighed and shook his head. "I'll tell you everything. But you're both going to think I'm out of my mind…"

VVVVVVVVVV

Conan staggered, and regained his balance. However, his vision was still mostly black, and what he could see was blurred.

_I will not pass out,_ he told himself as nausea churned his stomach. He rested his arm on the shelf and his head on his arm, breathing slowly and deeply. _Calm…calm…_ Finally he raised his head. Something was definitely out of the ordinary… Was he hurt that badly? He reached back to touch the back of his head where he had been hit.

_Oh no. This is bad._ His hand had felt something warm and sticky. Even through his fuzzy mind, he knew what it was before he looked at his hand. It was blood.

Blood in itself wasn't that much of a problem. But he knew that with all the time that that dizzy mind had wasted, it was about a half hour since he had been hit over the head. The fact that the blood was still warm and sticky was bad. He could have a severe concussion from the blow, and he was obviously suffering from blood loss. It was probably only through sheer power of will that he was even still standing.

He wiped his bloody hand on his shorts, and then went back to the plastic boxes. He had no time to waste, and he did not intend to. Miraculously, the next one that he opened contained bandages. He took one roll, closed the box, climbed down his box-stairs, and dropped down to sit with his back to the box that he had been standing on. Before unrolling the bandage, he reached back to inspect the wound. He kept his touch light and tried to figure out where the actual cut was. It seemed that he had bled all over his hair, for he found that a lot of it had hardened in dried blood. He could feel some of it on his neck as well. Every time that his finger hit the actual wound, he winced silently even as he told himself that it was useful, for it helped him determine the exact location of the wound.

Eventually, he realized that the cut was not all that large—only about three centimeters long, as well as his drowning mind could determine. He decided that it was probably just depth that kept it bleeding. So he wrapped the bandage around his head, careful that the entire wound was tightly bound.

Conan knew that normally, it was best for one in his situation to lie down and rest. However, even given his circumstances, he did not believe that he had time to do such a thing, as tempting as it sounded—even on the cold floor of this closet. But he put the boxes back into the bottom shelf, and then pressed his ear to the door.

It was completely silent. Had his pursuers given up? Or were they lurking in corners, waiting for him to show himself? After a few minutes of listening silently, he decided to take the chance.

Conan opened the door slowly and quietly. Peering around the door down the hallway in both directions, he saw that there was no sign of any life or movement in either direction. His racing heart calmed as he slipped out of the closet and silently closed the door. He would not go out from the door through which he had entered—he had been lucky to find no one waiting outside the closet door, but they probably had not known that he had entered it in the first place. They knew that he had entered the building through that side door. He would find another door, preferably a side door, to leave the building.

Therefore, Conan turned and continued down the hallway. Shortly after the closet door was another door on his right, and another beside that. Conan approached the first and pressed his ear to it. After a few moments of silence, he opened it cautiously. His eyes scanned the room. It was a windowless office-like room that extended back in the direction from which he had come. It was rather small. Opposite the door was a plain metal desk, and beside the door was a small magazine rack beside a chair. In front of the wall behind which, no doubt, was the closet stood a bookcase and a file cabinet.

Conan scanned this room with narrowed eyes twice, making sure that there was no one inside. When he was sure, he walked up to the bookcase. It was filled with scientific books—in chemistry, biology, physics, technology, even psychology… Pulling out a drawer in the file cabinet, he found more cryptic letters and numbers. This time, he did not even bother looking at any of them, and just closed the drawer with a sigh.

Cautiously re-entering the hallway, he slowly opened the door of the room beside it. This was deserted as well, and a mirror image of the office beside it. However, while the first office had been immaculate, this one was littered with pieces of paper, notebooks, coats and scarves, and pens and pencils. Only glancing at the objects that littered the ground, Conan made his way carefully to the bookcase.

If the other office's bookcase had been for science, he decided, then this one was meant for language. He recognized the _kojiki_(1)in Japanese, Shakespeare's and Chaucer's works in English, the Vedas in Sanskrit (he could not read the language, but the thick books' spines had their titles written in both English and what he presumed to be Sanskrit, if the title _The Vedas: complete in Sanskrit _was anything to go by), and two books of myths: one Latin, one Greek. He recognized a few books as being in Russian, but could not read the titles. There were a number of European languages, although he could not identify many of them. One, however, he recognized as French, and when he looked at the author's name, Madame Gabrielle Susanne Barbot de Gallon de Villeneuve, his eyebrows shot up. No doubt this was the story _Beauty and the Beast_; the woman Madame Leprince de Beaumont was credited with the story, but twenty years earlier, Madame Gabrielle had written a much longer story of the same sort.

As interesting as the bookcase was, Conan tore his eyes away and walked over to the file cabinet. He had rather expected it, so he did not even sigh as he closed the drawer again when he saw that the labeling was, again, cryptic combinations of letters and numbers.

Leaving the room and closing the door quietly behind him, the first thing that he noticed was a staircase right in front of him, across the hall. He had failed to notice this before, and reprehended himself for his lack of observation. True, his head was hurt, but it was not pounding as severely as it had been before.

Walking across to the stairs, he decided to first go up. This had not looked like a very tall building from the outside, dwarfed on either side by buildings that were almost triple its height. Sure enough, at the top of the staircase, he found only a short hallway extending to the right with one door on each side. The door on the wall opposite the staircase was positioned facing the staircase, so Conan approached that one first. Pressing his ear to the door, he once again made sure that it was completely silent before opening the door.

It was a laboratory. There was one long table with two sinks and a fireproof surface, and the rest of the room was filled with cabinets containing various chemicals, containers, and tools. This time he did not enter and explore, but instead closed the door and tried the one on the other side of the hallway.

This one was obviously a computer room. There were computers of various kinds lined up on desks. It did not look as though there were so many so that many people could use computers at the same time, but rather so that one could conduct experiments of some sort using a number of combined computers. In one corner of the room were a number of computers taken apart, and pieces lay here and there on the floor in that area.

Noticing a door on the other side of the room, Conan crossed to it. This time, he opened it without caution. It opened to a kitchen and dining room. There were two other doors, but Conan supposed that they must lead to a bedroom and bathroom, and went no further.

He returned to the staircase and descended. He would have shaken his head, but that was an action that would have hurt too much. So he instead settled for sighing.

Why was he exploring the second floor, when he had meant to only search for a door? He knew the answer to that: he was curious. The two offices had shown him books of such variety that he could not help but wonder what this building actually was. But he was finding out nothing. He felt that it looked most like the home of a rich, bored old man who decided he needed a large place to do his reading and conduct his experiments.

Reaching the ground floor, he was about to go back down the hallway when he heard a sound. Conan froze and listened, but he heard nothing. His brow furrowed and he closed his eyes, searching for sounds in the dead silence of the white staircase and hallway. Then he heard it.

It sounded like an animal… Perhaps some animal was trapped in the basement? Conan began to descend the staircase.

At the bottom was a white door with a small window at the top. Until then, Conan's fear, nervousness, and every other emotion had been rather faint, as his main focus had been the pain in his head and making sure that he stayed conscious. But that was getting easier now, and the emotions all came rushing back in a torrent. His heart, which had been beating steadily, was suddenly racing again. He swallowed as he reached the door. He was too short to see though the window; he would have to simply open it.

He slowly turned the knob and pushed it open a crack. Instantly, noises met his ears clearly. Barking, squeaking, screeching… Surprised, he pushed the door open and entered.

He was in a room full of cages of all sizes. Most were large and empty, but many small ones contained mice and rats; _lab mice, probably,_ thought Conan. There was a parrot in one cage, and a dog in another: neither looked very healthy. Then another sound caught his ears.

"Mmf!"

It was definitely a human voice, and Conan spun on the spot, trying to find its source. It came again, and this time he was certain it was from his left. So he made his way through the piles of empty cages and small mice and rat cages. Then he saw the source of the human voice.

Conan froze.

"Kaitou Kid!"

The shackled and gagged figure's head snapped up in unconcealed surprise.

(1) _kojiki _– meaning something along the lines of 'accounts of history', this is the first and oldest Japanese written record of history.

**Replies to reviews:**

**Basser **– Well, I'd say thank you yet again, but seeing as how you'd probably abandon this story if I pester you with any more outbursts of obsessive gratitude… I certainly _hope_ that the romance doesn't get stereotypical. I've got most of it planned, but when I type it up, I think it might not come out looking as good as it seems while it's still in my head…

**Meril **– Here it is! Hopefully, the wait until the next chapter will be shorter…

**YumeTakato** – Just in case you didn't see the thanks before the chapter—thanks!

**Hiei098** – You think so? I have a feeling that they're starting to slip out of character, actually…

**watashi wa jeru desu **– Oh, just wait until you see the rest—I think there won't be many main characters left untouched once I'm done with them. Thanks again for the information!

**Author's Notes: **Some of you may remember that in earlier author's notes, I said that I just started writing this with absolutely no idea where it was going to go. Well, you can discard that now. The plot's taken form in my mind, and while I'm starting to fear that it'll get too long, and trying to find ways to shorten it, I have a pretty good idea of what's going to happen. So have no fear—I'm not just floundering around, throwing people this way and that anymore. I've actually had a pretty good idea for the last three chapters or so, but was missing one piece: the Pandora. Now that I have that piece of information, things should get easier (I hope).

Now to criticize the lack of reviews: really, people! Do you want to read this story or not? Because according to the hit rate, either every single reviewer has opened this chapter ten times, or there're just lots of people reading and not reviewing. If you like it, tell me so! If you're indifferent, then tell me what you think I could do to improve! If you don't like it, then I really want you to tell me why! What do you think I post stories here for? To write and have people read my work, yes, but mostly to get criticism and improve! If I just wanted to write randomly, I'd stick to my original stories! So review! (sighs and shakes head) Honestly…


	8. Perilous Situations

This chapter is dedicated, with a very large amount of gratitude, to Basser, YumeTakato, and watashi wa jeru desu for their contribution of information, as this is the first chapter that will feature Kuroba Kaito as a main character.

**Perilous Danger**

**Chapter 7: Perilous Situations**

Conan no longer needed to ignore the pain in his head. In fact, he did not even remember that it was there. All that was on his mind was to get back to that utility closet in which he had first found himself upon entering the building. He darted over to the door, when he suddenly realized something. He spun around to address his companion.

"Kuroba—I've been all over the place. My fingerprints are going to be everywhere." Conan's voice was quiet, hardly more than a whisper, but the tone was urgent. Kaito slapped his hand to his forehead in frustration.

"_Kudo!_" he said desperately. "We need to get out of here! I agreed to linger long enough for you to do _one_ thing, and now you want to go around wiping off fingerprints? I don't even know how much you touched! You're wobbly on your feet, so I bet you touched a bunch of walls, trying to keep yourself up."

Conan's eyes were narrowed, however, and he did not appear to hear Kaito's words.

"I'll need gloves—I can't afford to touch them with my bare hands—there's no telling if that could change something or another. And I'll need plastic bags and a pen—or a marker. I think I could find them all in the lab, so while I'm finding those, you wipe off the fingerprints." Conan was already walking as he spoke.

"You want me to run a complete cleaning of this entire building in the next…how many minutes do we have?" Kaito's voice was urgent, frustrated, and annoyed all at once. Conan glanced at his watch—nine-eighteen. The half hour that he had spent debating whether to trust Kaito after hearing his long story had definitely been wasted. But in his defense, he had just trusted the wrong person a few hours before.

"Twelve more minutes," Conan said, picking up his pace.

"Holy-" Kaito began to swear loudly in alarm, forgetting to be quiet, but Conan quickly shushed him. However, after a few moments, he started up again. This time, his voice was a hiss; a menacing hiss. "When I say nine-thirty, Kudo, I don't mean that they come _precisely _at that time. People can come late. And they can come _early_. We've got to get out of here now."

"I didn't know that you were so jumpy," Conan remarked as he removed his handkerchief from his pocket, wiping the doorknob before opening it, and only holding it over the handkerchief.

"I'm not jumpy," Kaito said in a falsely light tone that held an underlying threat. "It's simply self-preservation; I value my life very much, you see."

"So do I," Conan retorted, opening drawers with the handkerchief so as not to leave any fingerprints. "And that's why I'm doing this."

"Pardon my wording," Kaito said. "I meant that I value my _current _life. And you should too," he added as Conan pulled on a pair of disposable gloves that he found in the drawer, pulled out a handful of plastic bags from the drawer, and began to search for a marker. "At least if you're alive, you'll be able to come back."

"Oh no I won't," Conan said firmly, shooting him a glance as he pulled a black marker out of another drawer. "Once they realize that you've escaped, this place is going to be up in flames in a flash. And if we don't do this properly, they'll be after me, too."

"And if you don't listen to me, it won't matter. We'll just be bodies on the floor with little holes in our heads."

"Here." Conan held out his handkerchief to Kaito. "Wipe all the doorknobs." Kaito sighed and rolled his eyes.

"And does His Suicidal Majesty want me to leave my fingerprints on the doorknob on the inside of the dungeon door?" They had begun to call the basement a 'dungeon' after the first half hour that they had spent there, discussing their situations.

"That'll be useful," Conan said as he opened the door and let Kaito leave the room first, continuing to act as though they were not in a very perilous situation. "Oh, and remember to wipe the shackles, too. Leave your fingerprints on those, also."

"As His Suicidal Majesty wishes," said Kaito with an over-exaggerated bow. But Conan headed down the stairs, paying him no heed—not even appearing to pick up the underlying hint that Kaito would much rather get out—so he only began to work with a resigned sigh. If he had to do it anyway, he might as well work as quickly as he could. And he wasn't about to abandon Kudo unless it was absolutely hopeless. Kudo had information that he needed badly.

Conan returned to the utility closet, his pulse racing. He made sure to close the door behind him and leave it open only a crack for air, taking Kaito's advice to be cautious. Swiftly, he pulled out the same boxes, wiping their sides quickly with his sleeve, and then climbed up to access the plastic boxes. After wiping those that he knew that he had touched with his sleeve as well, he opened the one that he knew held the tablets. Or, as he should have noticed before, _capsules_.

As quickly as he could, he put two of each type of capsule into a plastic bag, sealed the bag, and labeled it with the marker. After he finished the twelve types in that one box, he tried opening all the other plastic boxes. He came up with all sorts of things—bullets, ointments, pencils, jewels, even hair—but none other held tablets or capsules. Jumping down, he replaced the boxes, making sure that they were exactly where he had found them. Then he split the plastic bags between his pockets and put them in, hoping that they wouldn't be broken or melted or harmed in any other way.

He couldn't believe it. Right when he had not been thinking about the Organization at all, only about getting away, he had found the Organization's headquarters. While he was tempted to remain and see who worked there (Kaito had said that they had worn hats and masks when dealing with him), he knew that _that _was going overboard. Kaito had looked at the wound for him, and had dryly commented that he was surprised that Conan was still conscious and on his feet. Conan knew very well that it was adrenaline keeping him up at the moment and excitement erasing the pain, but while he refused to think about it (that would only bring the blinding pain back), he was aware of it enough to know that he was probably already pushing his limits. Either way, he had twelve types of capsules—with any luck, one would be the right kind.

When he left the closet, Kaito had just finished wiping all the doorknobs, and was closing the door of the office that Conan had entered first—and he was using his bare hand.

"What do you think you're doing?" hissed Conan in alarm. "That'll leave your fingerprints there!"

"Exactly," Kaito said with a smirk. "So if _your_ muddled brain is too muddled to remember that you moved something, they won't think it strange and go searching the walls for fingerprints where, inevitably, they will be successful at finding yours." The last part was added as he shot Conan a pointed look: Conan was bracing himself with a hand against the wall. But Conan was staring at Kaito in surprise, and did not appear to hear him.

"You're wearing your Kid outfit," he noted with surprise. When he had found Kaito in the basement, he had been wearing a tattered shirt that might have been white once, and black pants.

"I know," he said, walking over to and opening the utility closet. "I had the sense to search the apartment part to find my clothes, which you obviously didn't. They were lying right out in the open in the bedroom. You have the concussion—let me do the thinking."

"Don't remind me," Conan growled angrily. He was depending solely on the power of the mind—the power of forgetfulness—to keep himself from going insane with pain. Thinking was one thing, but hearing it said out loud had brought a certain amount of pounding back. However, Kaito was looking up at the boxes, and did not appear to be listening.

"Hey, Kudo, you checked all of them, right?" he asked. "Didn't just open one box?"

"Of course!" snapped Conan irritably. "There were pencils, hair, jewels…no other capsules."

"Jewels?" Kaito's eyes widened, and he entered the closet. Conan stared. It was a few moments before he realized what Kaito was thinking.

"It isn't going to be there, Kuroba!" he said impatiently. "We've got to leave!"

"You didn't listen when _I_ said that," Kaito reminded him. He was opening box after box. Then he found the one with jewels, and pocketed them all in a flash. "Okay, we can leave."

There was the distinct sound of a door opening. Conan and Kaito froze in place, eyes fixed down the hall—in the direction that Conan had not explored where, no doubt, the main entrance was to be found. Conan and Kaito exchanged a glance, and then dove into the closet just as the sound of footsteps approached the corner at the end of the hallway.

"He might come in," mouthed Kaito with a glare that clearly added, "and if we're caught, I will make you regret not listening to me more than you've ever regretted anything in your seventeen years of life!"

But Conan was distracted. It had suddenly occurred to him that it was very strange that they should be able to see so well inside a closed closet. Looking around, he sought the source of the light. However, Kaito, who had noticed this before mouthing his words to Conan, was already shifting a box out of the way on the right side bottom shelf. There was a glass window behind it. It was a square, about thirty centimeters each way, and barely one tiny step higher than the ground outside.

The footsteps were steadily approaching. Kaito wasted no time thinking. He swiftly unlocked and opened the window, grabbed Conan, and shoved him through it onto the concrete ground of the alleyway outside. Conan felt his head spin at the impact—small though it was—as well as the sudden movement, but shoved it away more forcefully than ever as he rolled around to look at the thief—once his rival and now his only ally—in horror.

"What do you think you're doing, Kuroba?" Conan hissed.

"You're the one with a concussion," Kaito said quietly with a confident grin. "_I'll _do the thinking. _You _just do as you're told."

"This is ridiculous!" Conan whispered back forcefully, striving not to raise his voice and feeling the pounding in his head intensify. He was losing his strength, but he absolutely refused to do so.

"No," Kaito replied just as quietly and forcefully. "Look—you'd just be a nuisance to me. I've got to get out of here some other way, and if I have to take care of you, I won't be able to do that. I'll meet you at the bottom of Tokyo Tower at five this afternoon. I'd say noon, but I don't know how long it'll take for me to get out of here. And I'm giving you seven and a half hours to see a doctor and then get there without being spotted, so you'd better be there having already been to a doctor." He finished with a stern look, and then closed and locked the window and replaced the box in front of it before Conan even had the chance to think up anything to say.

Conan was dizzy. What was he supposed to do? He could go to the side door and try to help Kaito… But no. He knew that Kaito had been right. As difficult as it was for him to admit it, his prided brain was not functioning properly, and even with his shoes, he had been unable to hit his target even when it had been something as large as a car's window. He would have to have faith in Kaito's abilities, swallow his pride, and head for a doctor before he was found by more trouble that he couldn't handle.

He turned back to the alley, and was surprised when he staggered into the wall.

_I'm not even feeling much pain anymore,_ Conan thought in surprise. _Why is my body suddenly out of my control like this?_

He decided not to answer that question, and just attempt to get to a doctor as quickly as possible. Dragging as much alertness to himself as he could, he started towards the fence. It took more effort to climb it this time—he had to pay close attention every time he moved a hand or foot to another wire. When he reached the top, he sighed in relief, loosening his hold on alertness for a split second. In that moment, he found himself suddenly leaning back, and hastily gathered his strength and firmed his grip once more before climbing down. It was not a comforting thought to know that he would not be able to rest his weary mind at all before reaching a doctor, so he decided not to think about it. It took his precious will power to shove the thought from his mind, but he judged that it would take even more to try and walk around with the thought that he would get know rest. Conan reached the bottom of the fence and carefully placed his feet on the ground, being careful not to stagger.

Paying close attention to each step he took, he placed one foot in front of the other and carried himself out of the alley. It was unnerving to note that the area still appeared deserted. But he paid that little heed, more concerned with walking all the way to a hospital or doctor. Right; left; right; left. He did not allow his concentration to waver, and was careful to move his feet in a straight line. Left; right; left; right. He had no idea where to find a doctor's office, but he figured that if he kept going straight along such a large road, he was sure to eventually get to a place where there were people, and where he could at least ask directions to one.

"You shouldn't be out here," a voice crackled to his left.

Startled, Conan lost his concentration and stumbled, falling on all fours. He remained there with his eyes closed for a moment, breathing deeply. Oh, how good it would feel to just lie down and go to sleep… But he could not. He owed that much to Kaito, whom he had promised to meet, and Ran, who could possibly be in trouble. So he opened his eyes and attempted to stand. Just as he was almost back on his feet, a large sneeze shook his body, throwing him back to the ground on his behind. As he wiped his nose with a sleeve, Conan reflected that he had never felt more miserable.

"You're in bad shape," the same crackling voice said next to him, startling him again. But this time he was feeling too miserable to be moved by a start. He glanced to his left, and saw an old woman in a tattered outfit and with a threadbare shawl pulled around her shoulders. Her clothes were grey, in the same shade as the wall behind her, camouflaging her well. She looked more like a beggar than anything by her attire, but her cheerful expression suggested that she had never been happier. Conan eyed her warily. "But they wouldn't care if you'd had a heart attack—that's the way they are, these days."

"Who's 'they'?" Conan's voice was scratchy and tired, and he wondered if he had passed out somewhere and not noticed. He had just spoken to Kaito, and his voice had sounded fine then. …Or had it? He was not too sure any longer.

"Why, the police force, of course," the old woman said with a crackling laugh. She reminded Conan of the sort of witch that one hears about in western fairy tales. "Didn't you know? This area is all offices—no residencies—so they ordered that no one come to this area today. They were tipped off about a criminal organization with a headquarters in this area."

"Oh," said Conan. It occurred to him that it was odd that the police force should be warned about the headquarters now, and the headquarters still be intact, but he was too exhausted to care. At the moment, he was concentrating on getting back to his feet and being wary of this odd woman. His brain had no room for other thoughts.

"Odd, if you ask me," the woman continued with a chuckle. "That headquarters has been there for years. Why should the police start caring so suddenly now?"

"Oh?" Conan was on his feet now, and supporting himself with a hand on a lamppost. Suddenly, less attention was on his staying on his feet, and more on the woman's strangely informed observation.

"The building that you just came out of," the woman said with a smile that revealed a mouth that was missing most of its teeth. "But I'm sure that you already knew that. That young man you were with was the phantom thief, wasn't he? He was brought in there yesterday morning, and the men that took him were too loose-tongued to have not slipped." She gave another crackling laugh, and suddenly looked directly at Conan with eyes that were so sharp that they made the hair stand on end at the back of his neck. "I'm sure that he told you all about that."

Conan did not reply this time. He now knew for sure that he had to get away as quickly as possible. This woman knew too much to be an ordinary beggar woman for his tastes. He would have bolted off as fast as he could on his wobbly, unsteady legs, but he was even more wary about turning his back on her. But the old woman did not seem to want a reply. Her smile suddenly vanished, and her face was terrifyingly serious. When her smile was gone from her face, the look of a slightly innocent, ignorant witch vanished, giving way to a look of a sharp witch who knew all there was to know, and was to be obeyed without question.

"Listen, young man," she told him. _Young man_. Conan's skin crawled. "I know more than I look like I do, as I've just demonstrated. I know for a fact that the police force is _not on your side_." Her eyes were painfully serious, and Conan thought his heart would stop beating. What was she trying to say? Why should he even believe her? "If you ever happen to encounter a police officer, take my advice and run. Don't play the part of the innocent child, because that'll only sink you in deeper. The fact that you're here is going to be proof enough for them." Her sharp eyes suddenly slid down the deserted street and narrowed. Her voice lowered to a sharp hiss. "Now take my advice and _run!_" And then she was gone, disappearing into an alley behind her with a swoosh of her loose, long white hair so quickly that it appeared as though she had vanished.

Conan looked around in the direction in which she had looked. A police officer was running in his direction. Conan was at a loss. The woman _had _proved to be extremely knowledgeable of things that she should know nothing of, but that was more likely a sign that she was _not _to be trusted. Conan remembered the way that she was camouflaged against the wall, and wondered if she was a spy for the Organization. Well, surely the police could help him—if nothing else, they could take him to a hospital.

"What are you doing here?" the policeman asked in a falsely kind tone as soon as he was within hearing range of Conan. "No one's supposed to be here today, you know."

Conan hesitated. What was he supposed to say? 'Oh, I didn't mean to come—it was just that these guy dropped a trunk on me, then tried to kill me with a car, then kidnapped me, and I escaped but got lost and was found by a criminal who drove me back, but on the way we found out that a certain building was going to be exploded, so I sent her to try and stop it because I was a fool and ended up trusting her for a second, but then she sent two people to kidnap me after that, and I escaped but ended up in the headquarters of a criminal organization where I found out that I probably had a concussion and met Kaitou Kid, who was in a similar sort of situation except that he was only kidnapped once because they were looking for this jewel that's supposed to make them immortal, but I just got out of that headquarters. My head really hurts, so would you please take me to a hospital? Oh, you want to know why I'm messed up in such trouble? I'm actually Kudo Shinichi, you see. You know, the high school detective? That same criminal organization that I mentioned earlier tried to kill me about a year ago and made me swallow a poison, but it ended up shrinking me instead.'

Conan shuddered at the thought. He'd have to be extremely lucky if they took him to a normal hospital after that. They would probably take him to a mental hospital to see whether or not the blow had damaged his brain. Actually, Conan thought, it might have, just not so much that it was muddled—he still knew right from left and reality from imagination; he just was ready to collapse at any minute. Finally, Conan concluded that he really needed a hospital, and nothing else really mattered at that particular moment.

"I was hit over the head," Conan answered after a long moment of thought. "I'm feeling like collapsing. Would you please take me to a hospital?"

The police officer stared suspiciously at Conan for a few moments, but Conan hardly noticed. He was too busy hoping with all he had that the man would agree to take him to a hospital.

"Okay," the officer said. "But after that, you're going to have to have a nice talk with us, all right?" His tone was falsely kind again, but Conan did not even notice the steel that lay under the sugarcoated tone.

"That's fine," Conan said in relief. Anything to make his head better.

"Then come along," the officer began to walk, and Conan followed. It took effort for him to walk at a slow pace, let alone an adult's rapid stride. As he worked with all he had to keep up with the officer's fast pace, it never once occurred to him as being odd that the officer would not carry a child who had admitted being hit over the head, or that he kept glancing back as though to make sure that Conan was still following.

Conan followed the man back to a police car. The walk was probably no more than four or five minutes, but it felt like ages to Conan, to whom each second was a struggle. He barely managed to keep himself from breathing a sigh of relief when the policeman stopped in front of a police car and unlocked the door. When he entered the car and seated himself in the back seat, however, he leaned against the back of the seat and let out a long, tired sigh.

After all that running and exhaustion, he was finally safe. The old woman's warning ran through his head once more, but he shoved that away. She could not possibly have any motive for wanting to help him. Just the fact that she had known that he was in a perilous situation was ominous.

Conan relaxed just enough to keep himself from falling asleep. I couldn't hurt to remain cautious, after all.

VVVVVVVVVV

Ran sighed in exhaustion. Detectives Takagi and Sato had returned to the building to stop the bomb, but she had not been able to work up the will to abandon her quest for Shinichi, even for a moment. Even though the woman that Detective Takagi had met had said that Shinichi had sent her; even though the words, in Shinichi's handwriting, said that it was of great importance that the bomb be stopped. So the detectives had returned in the car, and she had continued on foot. She decided that it was hopeless to try and search the places to which that car might have gone as long as she was on foot, so she instead assumed that Shinichi had escaped and wondered where he would have gone. Not to her home or the Professor's, surely, for no matter how many times she called either, no one was home.

So she was heading for Beika Park. When she had been running, it had seemed to her to be the best place to run to, with the shelter and darkness that it offered at night, and the crowds of people by day. She had been walking for over an hour, and her feet were hurting (she was wearing sandals—not very comfortable to walk in for long distances), but she pressed on. She was almost there, and she was determined not to give up.

When she reached the entrance to the park, she did not sigh in relief at having finally reached her destination; instead, her pace quickened and her eyes sharpened as they scanned the area as she walked.

Ran walked through the park, looking around carefully as she did so. She scanned the people, looking for a child who acted like an adult, but was quite sure that she would not find him among the people. After a few minutes of walking along the roads, she turned off into one of the tree groves that were something like a small woods. She looked right and left, forwards and backwards, and up and down. However, she saw no sign of movement, and when she did, it was always some small animal or a bird. But this did not discourage her. She was quite certain that it would not be easy finding a little boy with a sharp and clever mind who had that mind set on_ not _being found.

Suddenly, voices reached her ears, and she stopped. After a few moments of listening, she realized that they were two people, approaching through the trees—a young woman and a young man, to judge by their voices.

"Why are we in here?" a woman's voice said. She sounded eerily calm.

"I don't know," replied a man's voice. He, in contrast, sounded very annoyed. "My instinct was to search in the most unlikely places, and this seemed as unlikely as unlikely goes."

They suddenly came into sight through the trees. They saw Ran at the same time as she saw them, and they all stood rooted for the spot for a moment, staring at each other.

The woman had long red hair and red eyes; the man had brown hair and blue eyes, and looked slightly familiar, though Ran couldn't place where she had seen him before. The man's brow furrowed.

"Aoko?" he asked in a slightly puzzled tone.

"Don't be silly," the woman replied, rolling her eyes. "Does that look like Aoko to you?"

"Um…you wouldn't happen to be looking for someone, would you?" Ran ventured. The man and woman looked at her with narrowed eyes. "You don't have to answer—I'm sorry for prying," Ran hastily added, feeling a little foolish. "It's just that I'm looking for someone, and it's a little odd for people to wander around in here, anyway…"

"We are," the woman replied in a serious tone. The man glanced at her, surprised, but said nothing. "Our friends, Kuroba Kaito and Nakamori Aoko, disappeared, and we have no idea where they are. Hakuba-kun here"-she indicated the man beside her-"got wind of suspicious activity and thought that they might be in trouble, and I read misfortune for Kuroba-kun in the cards, so we decided to look for them."

Ran found herself unnerved by the young woman's calm demeanor, but soon found herself distracted at the man's name.

"Hakuba… You're Hakuba Saguru! I _thought _I'd seen you somewhere!"

Saguru regarded Ran silently with a frown for a moment, trying to figure out why she seemed familiar—since she looked slightly familiar and she recognized him, he was positive that they had met before.

"Ah, yes," he said, suddenly remembering. "You're Detective Mouri's daughter." Then his brow furrowed again. "Who did you say you were looking for?"

Ran hesitated for a moment, wondering if she should trust them. A lie was at the tip of her tongue when something suddenly clicked.

"Kuroba Kaito?" she asked sharply, her eyes widening. "You mean Kaitou Kid? He's gone, too? Why, what happened?" The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. The moment that she realized what she had said, she felt her face beginning to heat up.

"How did you know that Kuroba-kun is Kaitou Kid?" the woman asked, sounding only mildly curious and betraying no surprise apart from a cocked eyebrow.

"Well… It's a long story, actually…" Ran was not sure whether to be grateful for her loose tongue, or to curse it.

"We have time," Saguru said mildly, and settled himself against a tree, giving a distinct impression of one who is looking forward to hearing a story. However, Ran knew that he would not settle for her not telling everything; after what she had let slip, they were sure to be wary of her.

So she decided to tell the truth.

**Replies to Reviews:**

**Basser** – This chapter didn't go too much into detail with explanation, I know—don't worry, everything will be explained. Some in the next chapter, some after the initial three days are over.

**YumeTakato** – (grins) I read the rant. It's wonderful to know that someone agrees with me!

**Meka** – Well, I waited a bit with the hope that I'd get a few more reviews and could make this longer, but unfortunately…

**wateshi wa jeru desu** – thanks for the website!

**Author's Note:** I give up. You readers are just hopeless. No matter what I do—threatening, bribing—it just doesn't work. I only got four reviews, but this chapter is five thousand words because it was simply impossible to fit everything in four thousand, and I don't want this to end up becoming some ridiculously many-chaptered story. So I'm going to bribe you once more—I'll make the word count of the next chapter the number of reviews I receive times a thousand—but after that, the chapter length will be independent of the number of reviews once more. So if you want the next chapter to be long—and I assure you that there will be hardly any explanations if it's short—I suggest you review.


	9. Perilous Memory

**Perilous Danger**

**Chapter 8: Perilous Memory**

"That's odd…" Saguru was deep in thought. His suspicious gaze had turned gradually more calculating over the course of Ran's story, and now he was deep in thought. "Then I suppose you're wondering what we're doing out here, too."

"Naturally," Ran said with a small smile.

"Since you know that Kuroba-kun is Kid, there really isn't anything to hide," said the woman. "I'm Akako. I'm a classmate of Kuroba-kun's. Did you hear about the Kid heist two nights back?"

"Not really," said Ran apologetically. "I don't really keep up-to-date with Kid heists."

"It doesn't really matter," Akako shrugged. "There was something odd about the last heist—Kid vanished."

"But isn't that what he does?" asked Ran. "He's a magician, right?" But Akako shook her head.

"I don't mean that there was a puff of smoke and he was gone," she said. "And that's what Kuroba-kun would do—he's quite a showoff. He entered the room that held the jewel, and it's suspected that he tried to escape from the air vent in that room. The odd thing is that it was a one-way thing, with nothing branching off of it at all, and yet the policeman who was standing watch on the other side of the air vent said that he never saw him. The door was jammed from the inside, the policeman inside the room fast asleep, and the window overlooked a large crowd of people. But Kid was nowhere to be found."

"But that's not all," Saguru cut in. "If that had been all, we'd all have just suspected that Kid came up with some new trick. But Aoko-san went missing after that. On that particular night, she was protesting against Kid as she always does, and everything was normal. But yesterday, when she entered the classroom, she was pale. She didn't even react when she heard that Kuroba was absent."

"And that's a bit thing, since Kuroba-kun is almost never absent," Akako added, and then picked up the story from there. "Over the day, she just seemed to get more and more troubled. No one could have a decent conversation with her all day, and by the time school ended she was so troubled that she didn't even show any sign that she'd heard when someone spoke to her. Her friends saw her off to her house, but her father wasn't home so we don't know what happened after that. All we know is that when her father got home, Aoko-san was gone. Hakuba-kun and myself decided that something must have happened to them, and we've been searching for them since early morning."

Ran sat thinking for a moment. _A policeman at the end of the air vent…_ Ran had an idea. She had a feeling that she might know what was happening. However, it was no more than a hypothesis. But they wouldn't get anywhere if someone didn't take a chance.

"Have you ever considered that maybe the Organization has people in the Japanese police force?" Ran asked suddenly. "It would explain quite a few things in my day, and it could explain why Kid disappeared. If that policeman at the end of the air vent were one of the members of the Organization, it would make sense if he put Kid to sleep and sent him off with some other men, and then reported that he hadn't seen Kid. And then maybe Aoko-san heard something or saw something… That would explain quite a bit, wouldn't it?"

Akako and Saguru looked at Ran with steady, unsettling eyes for a moment.

"There's something that you haven't yet told us, isn't there?" Akako asked shrewdly.

"Yes…actually," Ran nodded. "I told you that I separated with the two detectives that were helping me, but I didn't explain why." Saguru and Akako exchanged a look.

"What happened?" asked Akako.

"_I'll tell you everything. But you're both going to think that I'm out of my mind…" Detective Takagi sighed._

"_What happened?" asked Detective Sato impatiently. "Just tell us, Takagi-kun!"_

"_Well…" Takagi looked nervously at Sato. "I was going to the roof, like you told me to. But there was a foreign woman standing in front of the door that led out to the roof. I asked her to please move, but she looked at me seriously and asked if I was named Takagi Wataru._

"_Of course, I asked how she knew my name and what she wanted. But she just laughed and said not to get excited. Then she went on to tell me how there were a number of people out to kill Conan-kun, but that none had yet succeeded that she knew of. She said that there were connections between the Japanese police, the FBI, something she called 'The Organization', and various individuals._

"_According to her, 'The Organization' tried to kill Conan-kun last night, but failed. Apparently he outsmarted them and managed to throw them off his trail, and after that, he met this woman. But 'The Organization' knew that there was some sort of evidence left in the building—she didn't say what—and so have a bomb set up in it that will explode at eleven o'clock this morning, when they estimated that the majority of us would be there._

"_So I asked if she had any proof. She said that there wasn't any solid proof, but handed me this piece of paper, saying, 'Kudo Shinichi was with me when I found out about this bomb. He couldn't come in person, so he wrote this and sent it with me'. Then she just walked away down the steps. When I asked for her name, she laughed, but didn't reply. I wasn't going to believe that until I read this note. I'm quite sure that it's genuine…"_

_Sato looked at Takagi thoughtfully for a moment._

"_So the only proof we have is the note?" she asked._

"_I'm afraid so," said Takagi apologetically. Ran sat there listening, confused. Something wasn't adding up…_

_She glanced back down at the note in her hands and read it again._

To Detective Sato or Takagi:

If you receive this note, then you are investigating the building where a heavy trunk was dropped last night. First, know that there is no need to examine the trunk or investigate those who dropped it. I am on that case.

However, there is something that you _must_ investigate in that building—a bomb. I am afraid that I cannot give you much detail, as I am currently in a hurry, but you can know that you can trust what the woman who delivers this message will tell you. I will say, however, that the two of us were informed by another American. That should be enough to tell you that this is not as small an occurrence as you may think it.

I wish you luck on your investigation.

Kudo Shinichi

P.S. – Be wary of the woman who gives you this. The information she gives you can be trusted, but she herself is a dangerous and unpredictable personage.

_"Detective Takagi," Ran asked slowly, "did the woman give any indication to what he meant about it not being a small occurrence?" Takagi shrugged._

"_I just assumed that he meant what the woman told me—that it was an entanglement of a lot of separate people and groups, including the FBI." Then his brow furrowed thoughtfully. "But it puzzles me to think what the FBI is doing in Japan…" The creases at his brow deepened._

"_Takagi-kun…" Sato's voice was sharp, and Takagi cringed. "What else aren't you telling us?"_

"_The woman said something else," Takagi replied quickly, as though he thought that if he did not say it quickly, he would change his mind about everything. "Just as she was leaving, she turned around and said, 'and beware of your colleagues—not all of them are to be trusted in this particular investigation'. But she was gone before I could ask about that. That's really all I didn't tell you. I just thought that…well…it would be a little hard if we went around suspicious of everyone, wouldn't it?"_

_Sato was now thoughtful._

"_You know, I was thinking that something was odd. How many people are actually needed for an investigation of a fallen trunk, like this? But have you noticed that the area is now swarming with police?"_

_There was a brief silence, and though no one voiced it, they were all thinking the same thing: what if 'The Organization' referred to the criminal organization that those from the FBI had told Ran about? And if the woman's words that members of the police force were not to be trusted had meant that members of 'The Organization' were hiding among the police?_

"_That's it," Sato finally said briskly. "Takagi-kun, you and I are going back to the building and searching for the bomb as inconspicuously as you can." Then she turned to look at the backseat behind her. "Ran-chan…" But Ran, handing the note back to Takagi, was already shifting over to the door and opening it._

"_I'm continuing on my own," Ran said to Sato with a strained smile. "I know that there's a chance that something pointing towards this organization will be found in the building. But it's not the organization that I want to find—it's Shinichi. If he didn't deliver the message himself, I doubt that he's anywhere near there." She climbed out of the car, and Sato looked at her apologetically as Ran closed the door._

"_I'm sorry that we couldn't be of more assistance…"_

"You could be right," conceded Saguru. "But it would be a bit far-fetched to stake everything on that, don't you think?"

Ran was feeling impatient. It was not like her to grow so impatient so easily, but she ignored that. She was stressed—more stressed than she let on. All sorts of possibilities of what could have happened to Shinichi, who had obviously met at least a few dangerous situations, and her parents, who appeared to have disappeared, ran through her mind in a whirl. And so politeness was definitely not one of her priorities.

"Look. Frankly, while I understand that you're worried about your friends, the only reason I share your concern is because I think it could be linked to my situation. All day long I've been trying to convince people that I'm sure that Shinichi would never turn into a criminal, and I'm sick of trying to explain myself. So either you keep with my theories and we try to find our friends together, or you insist on being skeptical and we go our separate ways. I'm not up to any other options." A twinge of guilt touched her chest, but Ran shoved it away easily. It was not the time for petty sentimentality—she had to be strong for Shinichi, and wasting time was not an option. And guilt would waste her time.

Saguru stared at Ran. Akako smiled. Then Saguru chuckled.

"I apologize," he said with a charming smile. "I suppose we're all quite tense."

Ran could not hold back the smile that tugged at her lips.

"Yes," she agreed. "But we all have a good right to be."

"True, true. But you must admit that you have no solid proof to your theory, and I, being a detective, simply cannot take abstract theories for granted, I'm afraid."

"So we will go our separate ways, then," Ran said firmly, standing.

"No, no," Saguru protested quickly, standing as well. "I didn't mean that. Even though I can't see your theory as true just like that, I think it might be useful if we searched for these three missing people together. We've already established that they're all probably wrapped up in the same thing…"

Ran gave the young detective that remembered her so much of her missing friend a smile. It was a wry smile, in which her exhaustion, anxiety, and helplessness entwined visibly.

"And that isn't an abstract theory?" she asked.

"Well," Saguru said slowly, sheepishly. "I suppose it is, but there's a greater possibility that it's true, I'd think…" Ran shook her head.

"No. For all we know, there could be other situations that we're unaware of." But even so, Ran sat back down. "So, tell me—how are you looking for Kid and Aoko-san?"

Instantly, Saguru's friendly smile vanished to be replaced by a businesslike detective's expression.

"As you said, there could very well be situations that we're unaware of, but for now, we're going with the theory that the organization has Kuroba and Aoko-san. Actually, there's no other way to search for him, so even before we heard of this organization from you, we were going by the theory that Kuroba was abducted by some group that thought that he could help them with something, or something like that. Anyhow, I investigated the scene of the heist, and found nothing that looked remotely helpful. So all we have are ideas of where such a group would hide. We've been walking through parks, searching deserted buildings… Basically, combining that theory with places we think Aoko-san may have run to."

Ran only barely masked her disappointment. It didn't appear that they were much better off than she was, and Saguru was a professional detective. Sighing, she stood once more. Saguru and Akako followed suit.

"I see. Then perhaps we ought to go our separate ways anyhow. Tokyo is much too large to search in one group—if they even are still in Tokyo. Why don't you continue to search in this vicinity, and I'll go elsewhere: somewhere where I feel there's a chance one of the three might be?" Ran knew that her suggestion sounded silly and childish, but she could think of no other options. What clues did they have to go by, anyway?

"Very well," Saguru conceded with a small nod. "I'm sorry that we couldn't be of any more assistance."

"I, too," Ran said before she turned and walked away.

VVVVVVVVVV

His breath was coming out in gasps.

"Aren't we…at any…hospital yet?" Conan managed to gasp to the police officer.

"It's still some distance," came the vague reply. "Up to telling me what happened to you yet?"

"I…told you," Conan gasped laboriously. "Hit over the head…"

"Yes, yes," replied the officer in a patient tone that was obviously masking impatience that even Conan, in his wrecked state, could see. "But by who? Why?"

"Didn't see…don't know…" Well, that was not a complete lie. He had not seen who the people were until quite some time after he had been injured, and even then had had no idea who they were. And he really did have no idea why they had attempted to kidnap him. In addition, he could not attempt to reason and deduce possible reasons in his pounding, spinning head.

"Oh, for heaven's sake!" the officer suddenly snapped, and turned to glare at him where he lay in the back seat of the car. "Just tell me, or you'll never reach a hospital!"

It took a few moments for Conan to process that. It took at least twice as many moments for him to understand what it meant. And it took twice as many moments as _that_ for him to grasp the implication of that.

How he regretted ignoring that old woman's warning.

But it was too late to take heed of the warning, and he was too weak to waste energy on guilt or regret. So instead, he started thinking up an escape plan.

Yet, even as he attempted to think up something simple that would not be difficult to execute, he knew that the dim awareness in his mind that told him to just go to sleep because all was hopeless was right. He contemplated giving up for a while in his hazy mind. Eventually, however, he came to the conclusion that every time he tried to take the easy way out because of his injury, he always seemed to end up in a worse predicament, and this time was probably no exception. But what could he do?

Suddenly, without warning, he remembered the labeled bags of capsules in his pocket. He was about to shove that thought away as a needless distraction, when the realization struck him.

Those capsules were the things that held the possibility of his returning to his true form once more. He could not take the easy way out and fall asleep, because then his person was certain to be thoroughly searched, and he would lose them. At the moment, his true form seemed to be an insignificant inconvenience, but miraculously, he heard the weak, tiny voice in his mind that reminded him that he would not be in such a terrible condition had he been in his true form. A child's body is much more weak and frail than an adult's, and that gave his enemies an advantage.

And at the moment, the entire world was his enemy. Minus a thief who was in the headquarters of his main enemies, and a little old woman who was a complete stranger to him. How ironic.

But irony did not change the fact that he needed as few weaknesses as possible (goodness knows he had enough at the moment, with his hazy, blurry mind and paining body and all the rest). So he could not fall asleep, nor could he concede to the police officer. But if he was not to tell the officer what he wanted to know, then how was he to get to a hospital? A hospital was, obviously, the thing that he needed most desperately at that moment, but he could not get there without giving the officer confidential information that would expose yet another weakness of Conan's to the world. Which was absolutely unacceptable.

He had enough enemies, and they all held enough weaknesses of his. Especially since he turned smaller, since a child's body was much more vulnerable than an adult's. That meant no exposing any more weaknesses, which meant no falling asleep, which would allow them to find the capsules and possibly even put him on drugs, and no conceding to the officer's demands. But he needed a hospital, and if he couldn't give the officer the information he wanted, how was he supposed to get to one? But he couldn't give that information-

_Wait…that thought's familiar. I think I thought that before. _Conan blinked, trying to straighten out his thoughts._ Wonderful,_ Conan snorted to himself in annoyance. _I think my mind's working in circles now. And I can't even remember what it was about._

And indeed, at that moment, Conan probably could have spent an hour simply lying there and thinking the same things over and over again, going through the same loop of thoughts that just kept leading back to the beginning over and over again. And even worse, he probably would never have noticed anything more that a slight feeling of déjà vu.

But luck, fortune, and everything associated with those two aspects of life saved him from that sad and miserable predicament. The car's engine sputtered to a stop.

"What the…?!" the officer demanded angrily, and attempted to get the car to start again. It started, and then sputtered and stopped again. After that, it would not even start.

Muttering and swearing in annoyed anger, the officer got out of the car, and, leaving the door open behind him, walked around to the front where he opened the front hood to inspect the engine.

It only took a few blinks for the befuddled Conan to recognize the opportunity for what it was. For the first time since dodging the car the previous night, his small body was useful, for it enabled him to squeeze between the front seats—it was the driver's door that was open, and it never occurred to him that he could open another door—and quickly stumble quietly out of the car.

Then he bolted. He knew that sneaking was useless, and that if the officer was busy enough, he would not notice him running away. So he just hoped for luck with every fiber of his being and ran.

For once his luck took pity on him, and the officer did not look up from his task. But Conan could not see this, and ran until he was completely out of breath—which was not a very long distance, though it did get him out of sight of the car. Leaning against the side of a building, he dropped to the ground in the alleyway.

"Psst!!" Conan suddenly heard. He looked up and looked around dazedly. "Down here!" He looked down, and saw a rather familiar old woman looking up at him with frantic eyes from under the slightly raised manhole cover. He stared. "Get down here, quickly! The officer's going to realize you're gone in a second, and-"

There was an angry shout of surprise from not too far away.

"See? Now get in here before he comes!"

Conan had already lost too much energy to be surprised by the appearance of the old woman from in the street near the Organization's headquarters, unnerved by the way that she seemed to be able to predict things so accurately, or bewildered at the idea of hiding in the manhole. He simply climbed into the hole obediently, gripping the metal holdings tightly, fearing that he would lose his grip and fall down. He could not see how far down 'down' was, and frankly (even in his disoriented state), he was determined not to find out the hard way.

The old woman moved to the side and let him enter far enough that she could close the cover. Conan froze when the cover was replaced: all light had been cut off, and he could no longer see where he was going which was, in his current condition, the root of disaster.

A moment later, however, light returned to the hole as the woman lit a lighter.

"Now, you're going to have to go ahead of me, since you're already further down than I am," she told him. "Just climb down until you see a little hole covered with a rubber flap on your left. Enter that hole just far enough that I can come in after you."

Conan was about to open his mouth to ask a few questions, but as his mind began to move to speech, he found himself losing his grip and balance. Quickly, he shut his mouth and proceeded to climb downwards.

He almost missed the black flap of rubber—it blended well into the filthy wall in the darkness. Opening it, he saw a small hole that a child of average build could wriggle through with only slight difficulty. Shrugging, he pushed himself in. Its width would certainly keep out unwanted visitors, he figured.

In the darkness and muddle, Conan had thought that it was a thin tunnel that extended far into the darkness. In fact, the thin tunnel was only as long as the length from his head to his knees. He tumbled through a rubber flap on the other side, and tumbled out onto a hard, cold floor that he guessed was stone—he could not see, for he was once again in total darkness. He sat and waited for the woman, too weary to even go and pull back the flap for the tiny bit of light that it would provide.

The woman came out of the tunnel feet first, and landed on her feet with a grace surprising for one so old. She walked briskly across the hollow, and lit an old-fashioned lantern with her lighter.

Conan saw that he was in a room that very much resembled a cave—the walls and ceiling were rough, but the floor was relatively even. The center of the floor was covered in a soft carpet, and there was a folded futon in the far corner. Beside the futon was a bookcase three shelves high, and beside that a table with some food and drink atop it. Beside that was a dresser with three drawers, and the lantern sitting on top. Apart from this, the hollow was bare. Actually, it was pretty full for a random little hollow in the sewers, but it was bare when one (such as Conan) could see that this was where the little old woman dwelled.

"I can't take you to a doctor," the woman said briskly as she opened the top drawer. From the other side of the small room, Conan could see that it was packed full with medical supplies. The woman quickly pulled out a number of things from the drawer, dumped them on the carpet, and then snatched a bottle of some clear liquid from the table.

"Drink this," she ordered Conan, holding out the bottle. Conan stared. It looked like alcohol.

"I'm underage, you see…" he said, and suddenly realized that he had made another mistake in following someone whom he knew nothing of.

"Nonsense," snapped the woman. Her sharp eyes were flashing dangerously, and they terrified Conan. "I'm not telling you to get drunk for the pleasure of it. I'm going to need to stitch that head of yours, so unless you would rather drop dead from blood loss or, even more probably, from some silly accident accounted for by your dysfunctional mind, I suggest you drink. It won't put you to sleep, but it'll ensure that you don't feel the pain. Or, of course, I could always stitch your head with you completely conscious. I know that you're feeling like the pain's numbed right now, but believe me, you'll start to feel it very sharply when I start to bring the needle through your living tissue. You'd have to feel every bit of it. The cold, sharp needle going in, then coming out, then going in again… Oh, and it's deep, so I'd have to do that first to the inner tissue, then to your outer skin. If you really want to feel that…"

Conan had gone bloodlessly pale. Somehow, as she spoke, he could not help imagining what she described…and it was not pleasant. Not in the least. He snatched the whisky bottle from her and took a good, long drink. At first, nothing seemed to change. Then, suddenly, it seemed that he was floating. He felt nothing as the woman carried (or rather half-dragged) him to the rug in the center of the room and laid him down beside all her medical supplies.

"I know that you can hear me," the woman began to speak as she threaded a needle quickly, giving the impression that this was not new to her, "So I'll talk and you listen. I meant it when I said that the police are not on your side."

Conan attempted to say that he now knew, but could not.

"I can answer some of the questions that I'm sure you have—not all, though." She was stitching now. He could see the movements of her arm, but could not feel a thing. "But first, I think that you're forgetting a few things. I'm well aware that you thought that Vermouth was the one who sent those idiots who hit you over the head. But think back. Would she really have the means to do that?"

Conan could not reply that he had no idea what she was trying to imply. She looked down at him steadily for a moment.

"Think back. You have the answer. From when 'the engine broke down'." She rolled her eyes. Conan's eyes would have widened with fear were he not paralyzed. "I don't know why you don't just call it what it is. The tires were shot. That's all there is to it."

Conan stared at the little old woman. How did she know…? But even as he wondered, slightly alarmed, his mind was drifting unintentionally back to the incident in question.

_VVVVVVVVVV_

"Yard."

"Deanery."

"Yard."

"Debauchery."

"Yield."

"Deputy."

Conan hesitated. Any other words that began with 'y' and ended in 'd'? No, he couldn't think of any. So he changed tactic.

"Yeshiva."

"Aristocracy."

Was Vermouth _ever _going to run out of words with 'y'? When he played with his first grade friends, 'e' had always been the enemy. With Vermouth, somehow, it was 'y'. Right from the beginning of the game, she'd had him stuck on 'y'. Only the first word with which he had started the game had not started with 'y'. _Well,_ he sighed, _at least she _knew _that there're two words 'yard'. Unlike other people I've played with, who've argued that it didn't count, since they're spelled the same way._

"Yaupon." As he spoke, he groped for a tactic to use against her.

"Nimiety."

And then it struck him. Oh, she would regret sticking him with 'y's…

"Yesterday," Conan said, shooting a smirk at Vermouth. He thought her lips twitched, but maybe it was just his imagination…

"Yeomanry," she returned, smirking as well.

"Yeasty."

"Yearly."

"Yummy."

"Yucky."

"Yellowy." There was a moment of hesitation. Then,

"Yablonovy." Conan turned to stare at her.

"That's the name of a place!" he said indignantly.

"No one ever said that places and names weren't allowed," she replied. She was no longer smirking, but grinning. Conan decided that it was unnerving, so settled with an indignant "humph!" and then decided to use this new allowance against her.

"Yancey."

"Yeardley."

"That's not a word!" Conan said, crossing his arms with a 'humph'. "Or a place that I know of. And it can only be a name or place that you'd find in a dictionary!"

"It's in the dictionary," Vermouth told him with a confident chuckle. "Sir George Yeardley was an English governor of the state of Virginia in the United States."

"You're using names of famous _Americans_?"

"Oh?" said Vermouth, raising her eyebrows. "I was under the impression that William Yancey was an _American_ politician? And I believe I just said that Sir Yeardley was English." Conan threw his arms up in defeat. He didn't think that there were any other words that began with 'y' and ended with 'y'.

And so on the game went, until Conan could think of no more words beginning with 'y' at all. They played three games in succession after that—in the first, Conan lost, backed into a corner in the same way with the letter 'w'. The second time, it was 'q' (he had had no idea that there were so many words ending in 'q' before…). In the third game, however, Conan was determined not to lose.

"Why don't you begin again?" Vermouth suggested, her expression _very _amused. This, however, only served to annoy Conan further. He _would _start this one, and he would _not _lose.

"Reflex."

"Xenophobe."

"Earwax."

"Xylidine." Conan raised an eyebrow.

"Of course you'd use a word referring to something toxic. Efflux."

"Xylophone."

"Epicalyx."

"Xerosere."

"I assume that ends with an 'e'?"

"It does."

"Okay, executrix then."

"Xylose."

"Ex."

"That's slang."

"No, it's a letter."

"Then it would be one letter, 'x'."

"No—look in the dictionary. It's there as 'ex'."

"Very well," Vermouth said with an over-dramatic sigh, "Xylene."

"Ex."

"Now, that one _is _slang."

"I never remember anyone saying 'no slang'."

"So? You made that rule against single-letter words."

"You don't get that right," Conan told her with his arms crossed. "Look at the words you've been using! What've you been doing? Researching the letter 'x'?"

"It's a very fascinating letter."

"You _have_ researched the letter 'x'?" Conan exclaimed, turning to stare at her in disbelief.

"Yes. It's one of the few letters that have barely changed for millennia, you know," she said. And then it suddenly struck Conan.

"You're stalling—you don't know any more words beginning with 'x' and ending with 'e', do you?"

"Xylophage," Vermouth retorted calmly. _Or not,_ thought Conan with an internal sigh as he hunted in his mind for another word. Then his eyes lit up.

"Ex."

"You've already used the letter and the slang. What is this supposed to be?"

"Abbreviation of 'extra'."

"No abbreviations."

"You can't say that—not after you've used some, too."

"Fine. Then before we go on, no numbers." Conan mentally cursed. He had been counting on that. "You made your rule, I get to make mine. Xenophile."

"Fine," huffed Conan. "Ex."

"Abbreviation of?"

"'Express'."

"Xerophyte."

"Ex.—abbreviation of 'example'."

"Xanthene."

"Ex.—abbreviation of 'except'."

"Xanthate."

"Ex.—abbreviation of 'examination'."

"Xanthine."

"Just changing the suffix of the same chemical substance?" Conan stalled as he frantically wracked his brain for more. "Did you research chemistry, too?"

"I read up on all the words in the 'x' section of the dictionary. No stalling." Conan mentally cursed. If only she hadn't stopped him from using numbers… Suddenly, a suspicion struck him. He turned it over in his head, and then spoke the word.

"Eighty-six."

"No numbers, remember?"

"It isn't. It's a verb."

"What?"

"'Eighty-six' can be used as a verb." Vermouth stared at Conan for a moment, and then burst out laughing.

"I've never had such a fun game of _shiritori _in my life. No one's ever managed to hold me on one letter for this long. X-disease."

"Thank you. I've never had my brain so stimulated in a mere word game before, either. Edaphic climax."

"I've never heard of that."

"It was in the dictionary last time I checked."

"You researched 'e'?"

"Of course not," Conan said, giving the laughing woman a horrified look. "It was an interesting-sounding word."

"So you have no idea what it means?"

"Nope."

"And I would have loved to ask. X-ray tube."

"Et ux."

"Pardon me?"

"Et ux. It's short for 'et uxor', which-"

"Means 'and wife', yes, I know. But that's not English. That's Latin."

"It's in the English dictionary."

"But it's Latin."

"But it's used in English, and therefore valid."

"X-irradiate," Vermouth gave her unspoken acceptance.

"Essex."

"Xanthippe."

"You know Socrates?" asked Conan, turning to look at her in surprise once again.

"Oh yes. Philosophy used to fascinate me when I was in my twenties and thirties."

"I haven't actually read all that much. I've always been more interested in things with more…substance. All the philosophy is just thought."

"And yet you know Xanthippe."

"Well, yes," said Conan, a little abashed. "Dad told me that it wasn't good for me to be reading mystery novels all the time, and made me read some works of Plato and Aristotle when I was around thirteen or fourteen."

"Says the boy who looks seven-years-old," Vermouth said, almost teasing.

"What about you? Saying 'in my twenties or thirties' when you look no older than twenty-nine?" Conan retorted, almost teasing her back. He didn't realize that he was having a _friendly _conversation with Vermouth until after the words left his mouth and she chuckled. Seeing his horrified expression, however, Vermouth sobered and looked at him with serious eyes. Neither noticed the blur of color leaping from the car roof onto the street.

"Listen-"

But just at that moment, with an odd, subtle sort of jerk, there was the sound of something hard moving over something equally hard, with only a small amount of padding in between. Conan and Vermouth instantly could discern the source of the problem—a tire was punctured.

"That's odd," Vermouth muttered, instantly back in her cold, calculating personality. "It was fine a moment ago. The only way that a tire could deflate so fast would be…"

"The logical conclusion would be to check the tires, criminal-lady," Conan replied, already getting out of the car.

"It might not be such a good idea to leave the car," Vermouth warned quickly. Conan turned and looked up at her.

"I'm already out and nothing's happened to me, and there's nothing to be gained from sitting in the car worrying about what might have happened," he replied flatly, looking at her with an equally flat look. Vermouth rolled her eyes and opened the door.

"Stop right there!"

Both Vermouth and Conan whirled around on the spot, and Vermouth reached into her jacket and pulled out her gun in a flash. But the figure that stood facing them some way behind the car held a gun as well, and was pointing it at Vermouth. And the figure, also Caucasian, was recognizable to both of them.

"Well, well, well," Vermouth said. Her voice was cold and menacing once again: nothing like the laughing, teasing woman that Conan had been playing with moments before. He could not resist glancing at her—and was chilled to the bone by the unfeeling, calculating smirk that she wore on her lips. Well, at least he was free of confusion now. "If it isn't the FBI agent. And I suppose you have me surrounded?"

"No—I'm the only one here."

"You actually expect me to believe that? Now, now, child—I've been in this business for longer than you've been alive, I'm sure."

"I didn't come here to arrest you," said Jodie as she walked up to them. "I saw a man and a woman on one of these roads earlier, and followed them." Conan and Vermouth looked at her disapprovingly. "They were acting quite suspiciously," Jodie said, exasperated. "Besides, just moments after I saw them, they ran off into the woods shouting angrily. One was also wearing a cold mask, and the other an actual mask. I think that that would be enough to give anyone cause for concern." Conan shrugged; Vermouth's face remained stony. "Anyhow, I followed them, and realized that they were following you, Conan-kun. And I would have done something to help you, but then I realized that you"-she looked venomously at Vermouth-"were following him, too. So I remained hidden, waiting to see if you would strike to assist the two. But you didn't, even when the pair left." Jodie's eyes hardened as she looked at Vermouth

"And I suppose you broke Cool Guy's glasses, thinking that I was trying to get to Sherry through him," Vermouth stated with a small smirk, placing the hand that was not holding the gun on her hip.

"Yes," Jodie conceded with a glare.

Conan glanced at Vermouth across the car hood in surprise. So she _had_ been telling the truth when she said it wasn't her. Then he noticed the way that the two women were eyeing each other: Jodie was looking like she was just waiting for Vermouth's guard to drop the slightest bit so that she could shoot; Vermouth had a glint in her eyes that chilled Conan to the bone. Somehow, he had a feeling that Vermouth was assessing what would be the best way to wound this annoyingly persistent FBI agent.

"Okay, both of you, that's enough!" Conan spoke up, stepping around the car to stand between the two women.

"Jodie-sensei, she's no danger to me at the moment because I carry an important message that makes me suffer, which amuses her, so put down your gun." He turned his head to look at the other woman, who had snorted (almost inaudibly—he was sure that Jodie had not heard it) at his statement. "Vermouth, you will put down your gun if you don't want me to give away the fact that you just happen to enjoy playing a certain game usually reserved for children." Jodie's eyebrows rose. Was Conan associating with the Organization? She had heard the theory before, but had never actually believed it. The corner of Vermouth's mouth twitched, but she did not lower her gun.

"Blackmail?" she asked lightly. "That will hardly matter if your friend over there decides to shoot, will it? And I seem to recall that you were the one who decided to play it." Conan crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes.

"If the situation were less serious, I would argue with that statement," he told her dryly. "Now both of you lower your guns, or I swear I'll run into the forest and get myself lost which would to you, sensei, mean my death and your loss of valuable information, and to you, Vermouth, the loss of a messenger and amusement. Do we understand each other?" Conan looked back and forth between Jodie and Vermouth as they slowly lowered their guns, eyeing each other warily. "Good. So, sensei, I'm sure that you're here for more reason than to check that I'm okay and take on a psycho sadistic murderess on your own."

"I resent that," Vermouth stated calmly. Conan and Jodie both looked at her with raised eyebrows, although Conan's were more amused, and Jodie's disbelieving.

"Yes, actually," Jodie answered slowly after a few moments of silence. She was still looking from Vermouth to Conan. "But first…Conan-kun, may I ask why you're on such familiar terms with this woman?"

"Bad luck," Conan replied dryly. "I needed a way home, and she just happened to offer me a ride."

"That really doesn't explain," Jodie replied coldly. "Why do you, a detective, associate with her, a murderess, thief, and member of a terribly dangerous criminal organization?"

Conan blinked, looking blankly at Jodie for a few moments. Could she mean…? He reviewed his words and action, and suddenly felt himself begin to pale. Yes, he had been acting quite familiar with her, hadn't he? And now Jodie was beginning to suspect that he was in league with them. Conan mentally cursed himself. How could he have been such an idiot?

"I'm tired and easily manipulated at the moment," he replied with a sigh after a little hesitation at the prospect of revealing the humiliating truth. "As I've been playing _shiritori_ with Vermouth for the last half hour or hour or so, I keep doing that." Jodie stared.

"You were playing _shiritori_ with her," she stated emotionlessly. Was the world turning upside down? And was Vermouth…chuckling? Real chuckling, that was not evil? No. Jodie hastily shook off the thought. Vermouth was a killer, emotionally incapable of anything that was not evil; she was simply an excellent actress—a dangerously spectacular actress.

"Er, yes," Conan admitted sheepishly, scratching the back of his neck. "I haven't had a decent sleep in a while, you see, and this body needs more of that than an adult's, and I was rapidly falling asleep. As you can probably guess, I had no desire to fall asleep in the car with her and leave myself wide open to anything, so…" The situation did not feel as dangerous as it should have. He fully believed that neither was going to kill him—the only danger was the chance that they might try to kill _each other_. And, of course, being a detective, it was his duty to prevent that. Actually, it was his duty to persecute she who could potentially commit murder and ensure that she saw justice, but at the moment, that person was his only chance of getting home alive.

He looked back and forth between the two.

"Look, I have absolutely no idea what's going on here," Conan sighed. "If either of you as an inkling as to what might be going on, I'd very much appreciate hearing what information you have."

"Conan-kun," Jodie told him. "I see that you've formed a temporary truce with Vermouth, but while I would be happy to tell you what I know, I'm afraid that I cannot speak with a member of the Organization present."

"Well then, you have no problems," Vermouth stated coldly. "Because I am no longer a member of the Organization." Conan whirled around to stare; Jodie's eyes narrowed.

"Why should I believe you?" asked the FBI agent coldly.

"What if I told you that those two who went after Conan were not actually supposed to kill Conan, but instead to lure me out?" Vermouth asked. Conan furrowed his brow in confusion. What? What was she saying? What _was _going on?

"I would be hard-pressed to believe you," Jodie replied.

"Well then, we're at an impasse, aren't we?" Vermouth remarked.

"Vermouth, would you care to explain that comment?" asked Conan. He definitely was not going to pass up an opportunity as good as this to find some new leads to the Organization and its many secrets. But almost as soon as he had spoken, he shivered, and all present knew that a child's body without enough clothing to keep it warm, such as Conan's, should not be out in weather as cold as this.

And so five minutes later saw them all in the back seat of the car, Conan in the middle. Conan sighed in relief—the two women had formed a temporary truce of sorts. It was not quite a truce, but at least their guns were back in inside pockets.

"Vermouth, I think you owe it to us to speak first," Jodie told her coldly.

"Very well," Vermouth agreed. Conan raised his eyebrows at her, skeptical at the fact that she had agreed so easily. "Cool Guy, we all know that if I argued here, it would just be a waste of time, since none of us would gain the information we want." Conan eyed her suspiciously for a time, and Jodie did the same. However, Conan finally shrugged and waved his hand in an indication for her to continue. She was far too good an actress for him to be able to discern whether or not she was telling the truth that easily.

"Those who join the Organization," Vermouth began, "Join with a single, unified goal. While there are some number of criminals addicted to illegal drugs involved, many members see such illegal transactions as a waste of time, effort, and risk. What they seek is probably the highest of standards set by any modern criminal organization. They attempt to reach this single goal in a great many ways—almost any probable method that can be thought up is attempted.

"But you see, I attained that goal all on my own. The method that I used will work only for one and is not very permanent. I remained in the Organization in search of a more strong, foolproof, permanent method. However, they discovered what I did about six months ago, and now are pursuing me. I asked you for Sherry, Cool Guy, because I hope that by handing her over to the Organization, I can get them off my case." There was a silence as Conan and Jodie waited for her to continue. She did not, however, and eventually Conan spoke up.

"What is this 'goal'?"

"That would be confidential information whose revelation would mean my certain death at the hands of my former boss."

"Then what proof do we have that gives us reason to trust you?" asked Conan, crossing his arms.

"The fact that I did not reveal your hiding place to the two searching for you in the forest—who were, as I'm sure Miss Jodie can tell us, members of the Organization." Vermouth looked over at Jodie, who nodded.

"Yes—I'm afraid I wasn't able to capture them, but I heard them say a few things that I found rather alarming. I would be back in town trying to do something if I hadn't been so worried about Conan, with you stalking him."

"As were you," Vermouth pointed out. "In fact, you were stalking both of us."

"I was concerned for his safety," Jodie replied frostily.

"So, what else do you have, sensei?" asked Conan, ignoring the building coldness. It would be impossible to build any kind of bond beyond a weak, temporary alliance, so he was not going to try—even _he_ did not completely trust either woman.

Suddenly, Jodie's face turned serious. She shot another wary glance at Vermouth, but then sighed and shook her head.

"Listen, Conan-kun," she said urgently. "The pair that was after you was discussing some valuable information that had to be destroyed. They intend to blow up a building in the city."

Instantly, Conan's eyes were serious and he was in detective mode.

"Do you have any idea which building or the type of information?" he asked. Jodie blinked in surprise for a moment. The tone was that of a professional, and she had not expected that from the child's body, despite the knowledge that he and the one that Vermouth called 'Sherry' were actually adults.

"They gave no hints to the type of information," she replied after a few moments of staring. "But they referred to the building as 'the building where they got the boy', which I assume would be the place where you were kidnapped."

Conan's eyes narrowed in deep thought. Valuable information? In that building? He was intrigued.

"What else?" he asked.

"I believe that the bomb is timed to go off at eleven—they seemed to think that they could take the most police officers down with it that way."

"Hm…" Conan considered. "We're going to have to get the information there to stop that, somehow…"

"You can do that later," said Jodie, waving a hand lightly. "I've got to go back to my boss soon too report." She hesitated, looking at Vermouth distrustfully. "I would offer to take you with me, but unfortunately, I'll be heading in the opposite direction…"

"And we cannot move from here, since you punctured two tires and this car only has one spare," Vermouth added. Jodie waved a hand in a nonchalant way.

"I can help you there. My car has a spare."

"Well, where is your car, and how do you propose to get there?" Vermouth asked, raising an eyebrow in an unspoken challenge.

"It's right near here," Jodie said, raising one of here own eyebrows in reply. "Do you think I wasn't considering that when I shot the car's tires?"

"Frankly, yes," Vermouth replied. "Since you had no way of knowing whether or not this car had a spare available."

"Anyway," Conan interrupted. He wanted to get moving again quickly. "Now that we've got that settled… Jodie-sensei, would you be so kind as to seek out your car and bring the spare tire? And Vermouth, we're replacing one while we wait for her."

Vermouth looked Conan's tiny body up and down skeptically, and Conan knew what she was saying without words.

"Okay, _you're_ replacing the tire, and I'm watching."

"You see?" Vermouth asked with a smirk as she opened the car door and stepped out, Conan following. "It's always much easier when you're honest from the start." Conan snorted, and so did Jodie on the other side of the car.

"This coming from you, Vermouth, is just comical. I can't take it very seriously."

"Oh, I'm usually honest," Vermouth replied.

"Oh?" Conan challenged as Vermouth got out the spare tire. "What about when you were disguised as Araide? That was a whole big falsity."

"Tell me," Vermouth asked seriously as she worked. "How is it any different from your lies to people like Angel, saying that your name is Edogawa Conan and you're seven years old?" Conan faltered for a moment.

"Because I do that in defense of my life and the lives of those around me," Conan replied quickly.

"And had I told you who I was, I would have found myself in prison within the hour," Vermouth replied.

"But you never had to start the impersonation in the first place." Vermouth sighed and looked around at Conan.

"You're a detective, so I'm sure that there have been numerous times when you were in need of information that you didn't have. Have you honestly never impersonated anyone for the sake of information? And there are even more common instances that I know of… Are you absolutely certain that you have never impersonated anyone?" Vermouth's eyes were piercing and challenging.

Conan was about to reply with an 'of course not!' before realizing that he could not. A number of memories swiftly resurfaced—him answering the phone using the bowtie to impersonate a prime suspect; him calling each of Kogoro and Megure in the other's voices to get them where he wanted when he wanted. And then, most condemning of all, his use of the watch and bowtie to impersonate a number of people—mainly Kogoro and Sonoko—in order to solve mysteries.

He glanced up at Vermouth, and found her grinning down at him like a Cheshire cat. She knew, of course.

"Fine, fine, you win," Conan sighed, and Vermouth returned to her work, humming contentedly. Was it the tiredness that was making him admit defeat so easily? He should have argued about the motives. But she would only say that in different situations, it was natural for them to have different motives for their actions. And no matter how he argued, he had to concede that she was right about the impersonating part.

Smirking, Vermouth moved around to the other side of the car to remove that wheel—she had finished the first while Conan was thinking.

Jodie approached with a wheel under her arm. Conan noted that she held the wheel in her left hand, ready to go for her gun if necessary. However, Vermouth just glanced up at her and nodded as she left the wheel, and she stood in place, unsure of whether or not to leave—for leaving would mean turning her back on Vermouth.

Conan noticed Jodie's small dilemma and spoke up.

"Don't worry—if she goes for her gun, I'll put her to sleep." Conan tapped his watch. Jodie nodded in formal thanks, and then slowly, warily, turned and headed back towards her car.

"Conan-kun?" Jodie suddenly called, turning back. "When referring to this conversation, I think it would be best to refer to it as something like…the engine breakdown." Conan stared. "You never know when people could be watching or listening, and somehow, I get the distinct feeling that it's in all our interests to keep it a deep, dark secret that the three of us spoke civilly and negotiated."

"That's true," Conan agreed. Vermouth gave looked up for a moment, and nodded as well. "We'll call it the engine breakdown, then." Jodie smiled and resumed her walk to her car.

"It's done," Vermouth finally announced, wiping her hands on a cloth. Putting all the tools and the two wheels back into the trunk, she and Conan got back into the car.

There was a long silence as they drove on, and Vermouth kept glancing over, wondering if Conan had fallen asleep. However, he just sat in place, staring at the dark road ahead, wondering what was the best way to contact the police to tell them about the bomb. Normally, he would have reacted to such news with skepticism, seeing as how there was nothing to prove that Jodie was telling the truth. However, he knew that now was not the time to dig for such things, so he settled for accepting her words as the truth.

"You can't go back to the building," Vermouth finally said. Conan looked up at her in surprise. "The Organization's had spies in the police force for a long time—since that was done by the Organization, those police are certain to go to make sure that everything goes according to plan. If you are seen there, I believe it is safe to assume that you have no chance of coming out alive."

"So, what do you propose?" Conan asked, crossing his arms.

"I propose that you write a letter and give it to me, telling me which police officer it is to be handed to."

"And how do I know that you'll actually hand it to them?" Conan asked, raising his eyebrows. "How do I know that you won't just take it and run off, leaving me to feel falsely reassured?"

"You are going to the Mouri residence sometime today, are you not?" she asked in slight annoyance. "Then you can send the Detective along with some sort of story of how you heard of it. If not, you could always alert the Professor."

"Fine," sighed Conan tiredly. "Do you have a pen and paper?"

"Try the glove compartment," Vermouth replied. Conan opened it…and was shocked at all the white. There was a stack of printer paper in the back, stacked up as high as possible, and it was surrounded by smaller sheets of paper, envelopes, and plane, undecorated notebooks. If he had not been looking for it, Conan may never have noticed the pen wedged between two stacks of small paper in the shadows. He pulled it out, and took a sheet of printer paper.

After some thought of how to write the letter and who to write it to, he began to write, slowly and carefully keeping it neat despite the bumpy ride.

"Finished," he finally announced, replacing the pen into the glove compartment and folding the paper.

"Leave it on the dashboard," Vermouth instructed him, and he obeyed. "Now, who do you want it handed to?"

Ah. Now came the difficult part.

"Well, either Detective Sato, or Detective Takagi. Detective Sato is a woman with short hair, and-"

"Yes, I know who they are," Vermouth interrupted. "Sato Miwako and Takagi Wataru, correct?"

"Erm…" Conan blinked. "Yes, I think so."

"Good," Vermouth replied. "Then there will be no problem."

Conan stared up at the woman.

"How do you know them?" he finally asked when she showed no sign of further elaboration.

"I've done my share of undercover work in the police force," came the reply, accompanied by a shrug. Conan almost opened his mouth to ask, but closed it a moment later—it was no use asking Vermouth about the Organization. She would not reveal anything unless she had already decided to reveal it before Conan attempted to dig for it.

"Just…make sure one of them gets it," he sighed, waving a hand in defeat.

"If they're there," Vermouth added.

"Right," Conan sighed again. He looked out the window at the dark woods passing by. How he would have loved to just lean against the side of the window and let his eyes close…and drift into a peaceful slumber…

Conan shook his head and sat up quickly, realizing that he had been doing just that. Even if Vermouth was something of an ally for the moment, that did not mean that he could trust her with his life when he was asleep and completely vulnerable. He crossed his arms and glared at her, looking for all the world as though it were her fault that he could not keep his eyes open. Vermouth chuckled.

"Would you like to play another game?" she asked.

"No more _shiritori_," sighed Conan. "I'm too tired, and playing the same game too many times will grind on my interest until I'm falling asleep in the middle of the game."

"How about a question game?" Vermouth suggested. "Each of us will ask a question, and both have to answer. I'm sure that that would spark your interest."

Conan sighed. He was just sinking lower and lower—this as the kind of game that you normally played with people that you wanted to get to know. But it was not as though he had much of a choice.

"Fine. You go first."

_VVVVVVVVVV_

"Done," announced the old woman above him with a crackle. Conan was dragged back into reality, and it took a few blinks to remember exactly where he was. When full recollection came, he sat up slowly. "You really should lie down, you know," the woman crackled cheerfully. Conan did not listen, and she did not persist.

The woman was good at treatment, he had to admit. He still had a terrible headache, but it was not half as bad as it had been earlier. His brainpower was back as well. He knew that he was most likely not thinking as clearly as he normally did, but it was a huge improvement from earlier, when he had scarcely been able to walk. It was also slightly worrisome—if this woman was such an adept doctor, what was she doing living in a little place like this? He watched the little old woman, wondering what she was attempting. However, as he sat there watching, she did nothing but sit at the table and begin to eat. Apart from the abnormal amount of noise she made as she bit of chunks of bread that looked half-stale and cheese that looked slightly moldy and chewed, there was nothing out of the ordinary.

"Why did you help me?" Conan finally asked. The woman looked around and laughed. Conan instantly regretted this—she still had food in her mouth, and when she laughed, he could see the half-chewed mass very clearly. He winced.

"I couldn't tell you, young man," she replied with a grin. "Normally, I would advise you to spread out the futon and get some sleep—that drug I gave you helped you get some rest, but there're side effects that tires a person out. Normally, even a person who's been sleeping regularly needs to sleep after taking that drug. But it took me longer than I thought to get that done. You suffered more damage than you'd realized, I'm sure. So, it is now three in the afternoon. I believe you have an appointment at five?"

Conan sprang up. Kuroba was going to kill him! He had absolutely no idea where he was, but was quite sure that he was not anywhere near Tokyo Tower. He looked at the little old woman.

"You wouldn't happen to know how to get to Tokyo Tower from here?" he asked. And then it suddenly struck him that she had been spouting facts as though she were omniscient. He stared. "And how did you know all that?"

The little old woman sighed. As she stood from the table, meal abandoned, she looked extremely old and weary. All the sharp perceptiveness and unwavering cheerfulness was gone from her demeanor, as though they had never been. Suddenly, Conan found himself not with a creepy woman who knew more than she should, but a weary old woman who was just awaiting the hands of death to take her to her rest.

"I'm afraid that I cannot answer that question," the little old woman replied. "But I can tell you how to get to Tokyo Tower."

Conan opened his mouth to protest against her first statement, or at least inquire as to why she could not tell him. But something in her eyes as she looked at him stopped the words in his throat. It was a sort of glimmer deep within those grey orbs that seemed sad, wise, and forbidding all at once.

"Go out the way I led you in," she instructed. "But don't climb up to go out the manhole. Go down instead. I'll give you my lantern so that you can see. There will be a narrow ledge beside the wall, above the water. If you go down facing the handholds, the direction you should head in will be the right. Pay attention as you go along, and climb out at the fifth manhole. You'll find yourself in an alleyway, with one side heading toward a building and the other toward a street. This is important: head _through the building_." She looked at him with piercing, urgent eyes. "Do _not_, no matter what you do, go onto the street."

"I see…" Conan muttered.

"I hope so," the woman crackled, her old cheerful self again. "You got yourself into enough trouble last time."

"And I should have remembered, too," Conan groaned, cursing his previously completely muddled mind. "Vermouth told me that there were members of the Organization in the police force."

"You would do well to remember that that's not the only group that's got undercover members in the police force," she crackled back. Conan stared, but she did not elaborate.

"What other groups?" he could not resist asking. "How do you know all this? Who are you?"

"Did I not just explain that I cannot answer those questions?" she crackled as she handed him a small lantern from the middle drawer, which appeared to contain random helpful objects (such as a knife, a net, a comb, a birdcage, and other such items). "But I'll tell you my name if we meet again."

"Why can't you tell me?" Conan asked.

"That is for me to know," she crackled in reply. Conan huffed. This woman was as evasive as Vermouth!

It struck him with that thought, and he looked at the little old woman sharply.

"Vermouth?" he asked.

"No," crackled the little old woman in apparent delight. "You've never meet me before. Now get going!"

And she practically shoved him into the thin tunnel, head first. Conan was about to shove back, and demand that she answer his questions, but then thought of Kuroba. Was the thief all right? Was he even still alive? Such thoughts filled his mind, and suddenly it did not matter so much whether or not the little old woman was Vermouth, or how she seemed to know everything.

Following the directions he had received, he held up the lantern to light his way, and wriggled his way through. He found that movement resulted in a headache and a desire to crumple up and fall asleep, but resisted. The old woman had said that he should have slept, so he would get sleep as soon as he met with Kuroba and they found a safe place to stay.

When he reached the bottom, he was rather annoyed to find that 'narrow ledge' had been an understatement. Even in his child's body, only about half his foot would fit on the ledge, and with his headache, he felt that he would fall backwards into the disgustingly filthy water at any moment. That was something that he was determined to avoid at all costs.

He slowly made his way along the ledge, holding himself steady against the wall with his left hand, and lighting his way with the lantern in his right. To his consternation, Conan found that the manholes were much further apart than he had anticipated. It took what must have been a five minutes' walk to reach the first. And then even longer to the second. Granted, he did not move very fast, trying to keep his balance and being very cautious of the particularly slippery portions of the ledge, but he still moved as rapidly as he could, given the circumstances.

By the time he finally reached the fifth manhole, he would not have been surprised if it had been four o'clock. In reality, however, only forty-five minutes had passed. He climbed up, the slimy metal slipping beneath his fingers precariously.

At the end, he came out into an alleyway just as the little old woman had said. Blinking in the sunlight, he almost turned toward the street, feeling that it would be a better option than the dark brick building that loomed ominously at the other end of the alley. But he remembered what had happened the last time he had ignored the old woman's advice and, shuddering, headed for the building.

Opening the door, he peeked in cautiously. It was silent, and all was enveloped in darkness. Holding up his lantern, he saw far enough to discern that it was no more than a deserted house. Grinning, he let the door close behind him and crossed the room. Due, for the most part, to his tendency to trust only the physical, he had no fear of dark, deserted houses. It was only the prospect of the sort of people that might stay there that frightened him. Considering the fact that he was completely weak and defenseless, and how it appeared for all the world as though the entire city was out to either murder or kidnap him, that was not a very welcoming thought.

Passing through the dark, deserted building, he opened every door he came across in search of a way out. He came across a filthy kitchen, a living room with an extremely tattered sofa and torn wallpaper, and a junk room that contained a few broken televisions, computer monitors, and china among other things before he finally found a door that opened to sunlight.

Turning off the old fashioned lantern, he stowed it in his pocket. It was too small to give much light, but it was very useful if it could be kept in his pocket—he did not think it would help him remain inconspicuous if he walked around downtown Tokyo with a large old fashioned western style lantern.

Looking around, he hesitated as he realized that the woman had given him no further directions. He almost sighed in relief when he saw a train station—and then realized that he lacked the money to ride. Sighing, he weighed his options. He could beg passersby for money, putting on the innocent, helpless little boy act, but somehow, even if it would save him what he guessed would probably be an hour of walking on his already tired little legs, the idea was extremely repulsive. His dignity had been left in irreparable tatters hours ago, when he had put so much faith in Vermouth. She was now his only hope of contacting the police about the bomb, and yet she was sending people after him and possibly dressing up as a little old woman to stalk him. There was always the hope that she had delivered his letter first and then done her own things, but he highly doubted it.

Sighing, he admitted defeat. A glance at his watch told him that it was almost four, which meant that the bomb had been meant to explode five hours ago. If she had not delivered the message, there was nothing that he could do about it.

He looked at the station. It was Beika station, he knew now. He simply had not recognized it because he usually entered from the north entrance; this was the south entrance.

Now that he had shot down the option of trying to get money out of someone else to ride the train, he did not have any options left but one. Until, that is, he spotted three phone booths. His eyes lit up instantly. With luck, he would find some change in there that he could use to get a ticket. Entering them one by one, he felt in the change return box for anything. The first and second were empty.

He was beginning to lose heart when he stretched his fingers into the box of the third box…and felt two cool round metal items. Heart leaping, he pulled them out.

And his heart sank. They were two ten-yen coins. He would need sixty yen to get to the next station, and eighty to get to Tokyo Tower. Sighing, he pocketed the coins and walked along the road tiredly. He was walking parallel with the alleyway, he realized—he was backtracking. Which meant that the first road that he crossed would be the one that the little old woman had warned him so urgently not to enter.

His heart was pounding when he reached the edge of the last building before the road. Peeking around, he saw a normal narrow, deserted road. At least, almost deserted. Two men stood talking right by the exit of the alleyway. He would have disregarded them had he not recognized one at once—Inspector Shiratori. And he was speaking to the younger of the two men who had tried to abduct Conan.

Conan dove back around the wall, eyes wide and heart racing. Shiratori? He could not believe it. Shiratori was in league with Vermouth? Or was it simply with the Organization, and the 'she' that they had been referring to some other member of the Organization? Now that he thought about it, that was just as likely—he had jumped to conclusions about the identity of the woman from whom the men had received their orders.

Peering around the corner, he made sure that they were completely engrossed in their conversation, and then darted across the road as quickly and silently as he possibly could. Reaching the other side, he nervously looked back to see if they had noticed. He breathed a deep sigh of relief to find them still completely engrossed in their conversation.

However, he walked away from the road as possibly as he possibly could, almost running with desperation.

**Replies to reviews:**

**sunniniko** – Oh, yeah, sorry about that… See, since this is a sort-of-mystery, and there's a certain order in which I want to present information to the readers. So if I skip over a scene, it's either because important information would be presented that I don't want presented yet, or because nothing special happens. I'm sure you can guess which it is in the case of the scene missing between chapters six and seven… (grins)

**Meril** – (winces) Yeah, I know, I was really late updating… Sorry…

**Anne** – Well, now I got twelve reviews—which is a personal record. Thanks!! I hope you keep reading, despite the terrible delay…

**Basser** – Okay, I answered a few questions here… But not too many. I'm trying to coordinate this just right so that I answer enough questions to keep people from abandoning this for lack of explanation, but at the same time keep enough questions looming that people don't drop it for lack of suspense. I'm so, so sorry about the wait…

**YumeTakato** – (cheers) Yep, you said it!! …Actually, you shamed me into going back and reviewing a few stories that I didn't review… (coughs in embarrassment at own hypocrisy)

**watashi wa jeru desu** – Yeah, Ran does karate. It's Kogoro who knows judo. About all the missing characters: well, you know that Heiji's part of the story from the phone calls and the prologue; you also know that Eri and Kogoro are involved, though you don't know how yet. As for the rest, some will make appearances, and others won't. Chat Noir, for one, because I don't know him, and a number of police from the series, since they're designated to certain areas to which I'm not taking this story. But for the most part, the main characters of the series will appear in here. As for the days, I've written up an explanation in the note under replies.

**amie** – I'm so sorry—this doesn't count as soon at all, does it?

**breakfast! **– No, no, thank _you_!! No one's ever thanked me for writing a story before… I mean, they say they like it and all the 'update soon!'s are there, but… Thanks so much!!!

**Shina Laris** – Oh, the plot's intricate alright. It's so intricate that I had to make a file where I wrote up all the scenes that I skipped over, and made a list of what's happening, how everything's going to turn out, who acts how, what happens when who does what…and so on. I hope you like this chapter!!

**sunny-rain **– Thanks!!! I'm really flattered. I was beginning to think something was wrong, due to lack of reviews… (is sheepish) But then when I get a lot, I suddenly take ages to update—sorry about that.

**mrit** – You're suggesting it?? Wow, I'm indebted to you! Hope you enjoy this chapter!!

_**Author's Note**: First of all, I am very, very sorry for this long wait! If you're wondering why, it involves home schooling, exams, a horrible case of laryngitis, terribly high fevers, traveling to renew my passport, etc. So, it isn't _entirely _my fault. Though it is, for the most part. So I'm really, really sorry about that._

_Now, just to clear up a little point about the days, when Conan says he hasn't slept for three days, I hope you've noted that he was awake for over twelve hours before this whole mess began, so that's counted too. So he's currently in the afternoon of day 2. It'll be exactly three days at dawn of the day after the next. Hence, Conan still has to endure the remainder of this day, then another day and two nights of torture (not in that order, of course)._

_So, in conclusion, I'm terribly sorry about the delay, and I hope you haven't abandoned this in exasperation. I'll try my best to get up the next chapter within a month (not that I didn't say within _the _month, but within _a _month. There's a difference). I promise. Review!!_


	10. Perilous Friendship

**Perilous Danger**

Chapter 9: Perilous Friendship

Conan collapsed to his knees, panting and unable to run any further. He had just run as though his life depended on it—which it quite possibly had—but had not made it far before his head began to pound again and he found himself stopping more out of the fear that he would return to the gasping, helpless lump again than actual necessity.

Great. Paranoia. Just what he needed.

His irritation was heightened when he heard footsteps behind him and found himself jumping out of his skin as his heart racing at a mile a minute.

_This isn't like me,_ he told himself firmly. _I'm_ calm collected_, and_ quick_-minded. I do_ not _panic and jump at the slightest hint of danger._

"Well, well, well…" Conan spun around at the voice behind him, mentally cursing for being consumed by his thoughts. "If it isn't a lost little kid. And all alone."

_Okay...maybe a little panic isn't out of place here..._

There was something unpleasant about that voice that sent a chill down his spine, and his detective instinct flared, the 'criminal alarm' going off at full speed. But in his current state…he wasn't sure whether or not to trust that criminal alarm. He was suffering paranoia, and that wasn't good for instincts.

There were three persons standing before him—probably in their teenage years. They were looking down at him with eyes that he didn't like at all. One had his hair spiked and purple at the tips; another had dyed his long hair brown and tied it in a ponytail; the other was a girl with short hair with pink streaks. They all wore black; the boys had chains around their neck, and the girl wore clothing that was not too revealing, but still exposed her bellybutton ring.

Conan mentally cursed. _A gang. Here and now, of all times and places!_

Inwardly cursing like there was no tomorrow, he turned and broke into a run. Of course, he ought to have known that it would be useless. He had hardly gotten five steps ahead when he was lifted by the collar and found himself facing the serene face of the girl—young woman, actually—and being held very uncomfortably by the collar.

"Uh-uh," the woman's voice was sweet, but there was a hint of steel in it that allowed no argument. "Little children like you shouldn't be out on their own at times like this. It's getting dark, did you notice?"

Conan gulped.

"So, kid, where do you live?" asked the purple-spiked boy—young man. "Just tell us, and we'll take you home to your mommy and daddy, okay?"

Conan's mind was in a whirl. What should he say? What could he do? How could he get away? He was done for. There was just nothing to be done!

And then he closed his eyes and slammed down on the whirlwind in his mind with all the mental power he had. Panic and hastiness were bad when in a delicate situation. If he kept his cool and had his wits about him, he would be able to seize the moment when an opportunity of escape presented itself.

"Don't go to sleep, kid!" said a third voice, impatient. "How're we supposed to get you home if you don't tell us where you live?"

Conan opened his eyes and glared at the longhaired man who had spoken.

The young woman twisted her body to look around to glare at him as well.

"What do you think you're doing, talking a kid like that? What makes you think he'd tell us where his home is if we snap at him?"

But as she scolded her friend, Conan felt her grip slacken ever so slightly. And he knew that this was his chance of escape.

In a flash, his sneaker was activated and lashing out backwards. It hit the girl's arm, and she released him with a shriek of surprise and pain. He reactivated the sneaker as he fell to the ground, and when he landed on his right foot, the sneaker sent him propelling upwards again.

Conan almost winced—he had been aiming to kick cracks into the concrete to distract the three gangsters, not send himself propelling into the air—but caught himself at the last moment and returned his mind to the present and what he could do. He glanced down to see how far up he was—and his eyes fell on his wrist. When had that string gotten coiled around it?

But he was beginning to fall again, and had no time for questions. With a quick, expert flick of his wrist, the string was in his right hand. He flung it out to the building that towered on his right, and saw it catch on the latch of an open window.

His sharp descent to the ground was halted with a jerk, and he was slammed into the wall. He probably would have let go of the string and fallen if he hadn't anticipated that and clutched his right hand with his left. He remained in place, eyes closed, for a moment as he gathered his strength once more. He ignored the pain of pulled muscles in his arms, and the pain of impact in his head and upper body. Instead, he concentrated on pulling himself up and into the window.

He did not look down to see what the gangsters were doing. He could hear their voices, but jumped down into the room beyond the window without trying to hear what they were saying. If they were not from the Organization or the police force, then they had no reason to target him specifically. He ought to be able to get away.

Conan looked around, but the room that he had entered was bare. Warning himself to be cautious, he tiptoed across the room and opened the door-

No. It was locked, and there was no keyhole or lock on the inside.

Sighing and swallowing his frustration, Conan made his way back to the window and looked down. The gangsters were gone—that was a good thing. He was one storey above ground level—that was a bad thing.

He remembered Ran leaping down one storey out the window once. But how could he, in this unfit body of a child? He'd definitely break a leg or two—and, depending on how he landed, possibly an arm, a back, or a neck to go with it.

Conan forced down the frustration that began to well up inside him. Calm. He needed to be calm.

He noticed a drainage pipe making its way down the wall beside the window. Conan looked at it thoughtfully. Yes, it looked like it could probably hold his weight. And the space between the pipe and the wall where the regular metal fastenings attached the two was large enough that he could probably fit a foot or a hand in one for support.

Conan grinned to himself. Yes, his wits were definitely back about him.

He clambered up onto the windowsill and carefully reached out to take hold of the nearest of the metal bars with his right hand. Then, holding the pipe with his left, he reached out his foot onto the one below. And then he climbed down, ever so slowly, until he saw the rock wall coming level with his feet. He released the pipe, leaping lightly onto the top of the wall. When he jumped off, back into the street, he was grinning to himself with satisfaction. He was quite sure that he could not have even _thought_ of doing something as easy as that a couple hours ago.

He hurried on his way, for fear that the three teens should find him again. However, he still had not seen them when he saw the next station ahead. Sighing in relief, he slowed his steps. A glance at his watch told him that it was four-thirty.

Conan winced. This was taking much longer than he'd thought…he must still be tired.

"Conan-kun!"

Conan winced. And forced himself to calm down. It was paranoia. He had heard nothing. He couldn't _possibly_ have heard anything. There was no _way_ that _they_ would just happen to be here at a time as late as this… Yes, he had just imagined it. But just as he was beginning to head on his way…

"I said, Conan-kun!"

Conan winced again. Or not. But maybe he was just thinking that it was Ayumi's voice and it was actually someone else…

But when he turned and looked at the person behind him, it was, indeed, Ayumi; and worse, she was closely followed by Genta and Mitsuhiko.

It was official: Conan had never suffered a worse case of luck. He could have cursed his luck straight into the underworld just then.

In fact, that was what he did do. He balled his fists and let loose a string of curses to the sky, pounding his head wildly.

When he finished, he looked up, panting for breath, to see his current classmates gaping at him.

"Wow," Genta said in obvious awe, "I've never even _heard_ half those words!"

"Yes," agreed a disapproving Mitsuhiko. "But I remember Mother telling me not to use some of them. You really should not use words like that, Conan-kun."

"Come on, guys!" Ayumi chided the two boys, concerned for Conan. "Conan-kun, did something happen? You don't look too well."

Conan would have dearly loved to snap at them that yes, he had had a horrible day, and they were the (decaying) cherries on the (curdled) icing on the (rock-hard) cake. But he had enough sense to take a deep breath, swallow the words, and greet them with a (fake) smile.

"No, no, I'm perfectly fine!" He hoped that they didn't catch the (rather obvious) sarcasm in the statement. "I just haven't had much sleep."

"Oh," said Ayumi, pacified. "Okay."

This is not to say that none of the Detective Boys noticed the strain in their friend's smile or the odd tone in his statement. However, they decided that he just had a little cold and was pretending he didn't.

"You have to take good care of your body," Mitsuhiko told him firmly.

"Aw, don't be so stiff," said Genta. "We're all going to my house to play video games and have a sleep over! Want to come, Conan?" All three looked at Conan with eyes so wide with enthusiasm that, under normal conditions, he would have been unable to refuse.

However, things being as they were at the moment, Conan did not even consider it.

"No, sorry guys. I've got to be at Tokyo Tower by five."

"Five?" repeated Ayumi, looking at her watch. "But Conan-kun, it's 4:35. You'll take longer of that walking."

"Why are you walking, anyway?" asked Mitsuhiko.

"Yeah, it's not that hard to use the trains, you know," Genta added.

Conan placed a hand to his forehead. He was getting a headache, and could foresee himself snapping at the three seven-year-olds in the near future if he didn't do something about it soon.

"I know, I know," Conan muttered. "I'd be on the train right now if I had more than twenty yen with me."

"Oh, that's it?" asked Genta, suddenly grinning. "Okay, then. We'll all pay for your ticket, and then we'll all go to Tokyo Tower!"

Conan took a deep breath, well aware that he should not shout.

"It's getting late. Shouldn't you guys be getting home?"

Of course, he should have expected the piercing glares that he fell on the receiving end of with that statement.

"Honestly, Conan-kun, you're the same age as we are!" chided Ayumi. "Stop acting like you're a grown-up talking to kids when you're talking to us!"

"Oh, yeah, I'm your age, alright," Conan could not resist muttering to himself. "I just happen to be ten years older, too."

Unfortunately, this reached his friends' ears.

"What? Ten years older than us? But that would make you…make you…" The calculation was made extremely difficult for Genta, as he could only get up to three years older—after that, he ran out of fingers.

"Seventeen," Mitsuhiko supplied. "And almost eighteen. Conan-kun, you're seven years old. Almost eight. See? I'm taller than you. You'd be much taller if you were seventeen."

He was speaking as though speaking to one who was mentally deranged. And indeed, perhaps Conan was, because it took much more mental power than it should have to keep from shouting that he was ten years older than them, and the only reason that he was so short and looking like a child was because of that #$& $!+# pill!

…Obviously, the symptoms of lack of sleep were beginning to show—and rather strongly, too.

"Look," said Conan with forced calmness. "I really need to get to Tokyo Tower, okay? So I'll just see you guys…later."

But of course, anyone who knew the Detective Boys could have foreseen that not one of them would let him simply walk away like that. And so that was how Conan ended up on the train, the Detective Boys chattering happily beside him.

"Listen, I really don't think you guys should be coming with me," Conan tried feebly, even with the knowledge that the attempt would fail.

"Stop it, Conan-kun!" frowned Ayumi. "We're all friends, and so we'll stick together and help each other. Don't try to throw us off like we're in your way. We're your friends!"

_Wonderful._ Conan was having trouble resisting rolling his eyes. _Just what I need. Friends—otherwise known as ready-made blackmail material._

"But your parents will worry, you know," Conan muttered

"Mother should not be too angry if I am back by seven," said Mitsuhiko confidently.

"What if I told you that I might not be finished by seven?" snapped Conan, sending Mitsuhiko a piercing look.

"Come on," groaned Genta. "You're going to Tokyo Tower when it's already dark! There's not much to do there."

"I'm not _going_ to _do_ things," Conan snapped back. The Detective Boys stared at him for a minute, and then their faces broke into grins.

"I smell a mystery," said Mitsuhiko.

"What kind of gold's hidden in Tokyo Tower?" asked Genta enthusiastically.

"Tell us, Conan-kun! Tell us!" That was Ayumi with sparkling eyes.

Conan took a few moments to gather his wits. He could not afford to let anything important slip.

"Look," he said slowly, glaring at the three children. "What business I have there is my business, and mine alone. After we get there, we are going our separate ways. And I know that you're going to want to follow me, so I'll tell you this." He paused a moment. "I _am_ involved in a mystery, and that is precisely why you should _not_ follow me. I'm dealing with something much bigger, scarier, and much, _much_ more dangerous than anything you've ever done. So just stay away, okay?"

The Detective Boys stared at him for a moment. Then they glared.

"You always try to do that!" complained Genta. "It's always 'you're not going to be able to deal with it, so go home and stay out of it'."

"Well, Conan-kun, you are just as young as we are," Mitsuhiko went on. "If it is too dangerous for us, then it is too dangerous for you. So then you should be staying out of it, too."

Conan rubbed his forehead.

"I'm already in this neck-deep, okay? I _can't_ stay out of it, because I'm a part of it."

"That doesn't make sense," frowned Ayumi. "Here, Conan-kun, why don't you tell us all about it? If it's too dangerous, we'll help you find a way out of it."

Conan's forced calmness broke. He leapt out of his seat.

"Did you not just hear me say that I _can't_ get out?" he snapped sharply. "Hell, I'm probably way _past_ neck-deep! I'm submerged! Just the fact that I'm sitting here _talking_ with you is proof of that!"

And then he realized what he'd done. Conan dropped his face into his hands. He heard the Detective Boys speak in curiosity and concern, but he turned his back on them and walked to the train door. When it opened, he walked out as swiftly as he could.

"Wait, Conan-kun!" he heard them call from behind. He heard their footsteps as they ran after him.

Conan tried walking faster, but he heard them continue to follow him and call to him to stop or wait. Finally, when he had almost reached the base of Tokyo Tower, he stopped and turned. Genta froze where he had been about to tap Conan on the shoulder.

"This has nothing to do with you whatsoever," said Conan slowly and clearly. "Go home."

With that, he spun around and walked off as fast as his little legs could walk. This time, he did not hear them trying to follow.

"You're late," came a voice to his left. Conan jumped and spun around.

"Oh," he sighed in relief. "Kuroba."

"Indeed," said the young man, looking the child's body up and down. "You look in much better physical condition. You took my advice and went to a doctor, I take it?"

Conan snorted.

"No. I collapsed on the street, got kidnapped and threatened by a police officer, ran away, and was saved by a little old woman who lives in the sewers and knows everything."

Kaito blinked.

"Pardon?"

"I collapsed on the street, got kidnapped and threatened by a police officer, ran away, and was saved by a little old woman who lives in the sewers and knows everything."

"Yeah, I heard you the first time," said Kaito, waving a hand. "What I mean is, what's this about a police officer and a little old woman?"

"Well, it would appear that the Organization's been putting some members undercover in the police force. And it seems to be pretty widespread. For instance, I saw Inspector Shiratori talking with people from the Organization. And…I think the old woman told me to remember something else, but I forgot."

"Wait, wait, hold up. The Organization's in the police force? But that'd pretty much mean that we have no allies, wouldn't it?"

"Kuroba. We're involved in a huge Organization that seems to have no single purpose…" Conan trailed off, his eyes distant.

"Kudo?" called Kaito, leaning down to his height and waving a hand in front of his face. "Kudo, you all right?"

"Vermouth told me," said Conan, his eyes distant, "That the Organization was formed with a single goal in mind, and that everything they do is for the sake of that one goal." Conan looked up at Kaito. "If we could figure out that goal, don't you think we'd be able to do quite a bit more than we are now?"

Kaito stared.

"Why're you only telling me this now?"

"I'd forgotten."

"Okay, okay. But we don't have any clues to that single purpose now, so what's this about a little old woman?"

"She's a little old woman who lives in the sewers and knows everything."

"Yes, you've said all that already. Isn't there anything else you know about her?"

"She keeps warning me of…stuff."

"Stuff?"

"Yeah. Like she told me I should hide when a police officer was coming along. I didn't listen to her, and he kidnapped and threatened me. Then, when I ran away, she popped out of a manhole right in front of me while I was running and pulled me in and led me to this little hole that she seemed to live in. Then she fixed me up and told me that she really thought I should sleep, but that I didn't have time because I had to meet you. Then she hinted that the Organization had people in the police."

"What? Why'd you tell her you were meeting me?"

"I didn't. Didn't I just tell you that she's a little old woman who knows everything? I mean, she even knew that you were in the Organization's headquarters and that I'd just come from there."

Kaito stared a moment, then shuddered.

"Creepy. And you say she was where the police officer kidnapped you, and then shortly after that she was where you ran away from the guy?"

Conan's brow furrowed.

"You know, I never really thought of that… It'd odd enough that she knew exactly where I'd run away, but it's even odder that she was right there—I mean, I was in a car and she didn't have any vehicle at all."

"Everyone knows cars aren't the best method of transportation in this country—it probably crossed too many railroad tracks and met too many red lights- Okay, sorry, sorry. It was probably just driving around in circles, anyway." Kaito swiftly retracted his joking at Conan's glare. "So anyway, what now?"

"How'd _you_ get away?" asked Conan.

Kaito shrugged.

"Pretty easily. You'd be surprised how little they use their closets. When they found the chains empty in the basement, they assumed I'd already escaped, so they weren't looking for me inside."

"Lucky you," muttered Conan.

"Oh yeah," replied the chipper Kaito. "It seems that all your luck's been transferred to me in recent days, doesn't it?"

"You call being kidnapped on a heist 'lucky'?"

"Apart from that," shrugged Kaito. "After that, I got information, food, and water. Pretty lucky considering my situation, wouldn't you say?"

"Again, lucky you. So what're we doing now?"

"Well-"

CRACK!

Conan felt something brush his left cheek. A moment later, the gentle brush turned to a burning pain. He reached up and touched it, and felt something warm and wet.

"Great," he muttered to himself. "More blood."

But just then there was another CRACK! and at the same time he felt himself being lifted and thrown to the side by the scruff of the neck.

"Jeez, Kudo!" shouted Kaito, throwing himself on the ground beside Conan. "I understand that your body's in dire need of sleep, but couldn't you do us all the favor of noticing when people are shooting at you? You know, with those black shiny things that shoot out this little balls so fast that they dig holes right through you? I believe most people refer to them as 'guns'. Does that ring any bell?"

"Stop mocking me-"

But Kaito had lifted him and thrown him to the side again as another CRACK! resounded through the air.

"_Pay attention!_" Kaito snapped angrily.

And then Conan was suddenly aware of the people screaming as they ran left and right. He leapt to his feet and looked around for the shooter.

When the next CRACK! came, he had already leapt into the midst of a crowd of people—the person probably wouldn't try to shoot him there.

But he could not stay in the crowd too long, for he could not afford to become separated from Kuroba.

There was another CRACK! Closely following it were children's screams.

"Conan-kun!" he heard a horribly familiar voice scream. "Someone's shooting at us!"

Conan spun around, eyes blazing. He grabbed his friends and shoved them behind a small shop with himself.

"I told you not to follow me! Didn't I say I had to do this alone? It's too dangerous, so you go home!"

"Too late for that," said another voice, joining them behind the shop.

The Detective Boys stared up at the young man in horror, and made to back away. However, Conan held them firmly in place and refused to let them move. If they backed away, after all, they would back out from the shelter of the shop.

"They've seen them with you, and that you know each other. You know that that's damning enough for them."

"You know, you really should not use words like-"

"Shut up, Mitsuhiko!" snapped Conan. The Detective Boys stared at him, wide-eyed in shock.

"Normally, I'd tell you not to snap at children like that, but I think there's something else I'd like to say to you instead." Kaito's falsely cheerful tone dropped, and his eyes narrowed dangerously. "What in the _world_ possessed you to bring innocent little children into this, you blasted psychotic moron!?"

"Look, I happened to meet them, I kept letting things slip by accident when I tried to stop them coming, and the end result is that they're being shot at, too. If I weren't so tired-"

"And didn't have a concussion. Let's not forget the concussion."

"Actually, I think the old woman healed that."

"Really? How?"

"She knows everything, that's how. Shouldn't we be trying to stay away from the- Run!"

Conan and Kaito dragged and shoved the Detective Boys out of the way. The person with the gun, masked with a black scarf, had taken the time of their conversation to walk around to the back of the shop.

"Now what?" groaned Conan through pants as they ran.

"I could give you a couple options if we weren't dragging three kids along!" snapped Kaito.

"Stop talking abou-"

"Shut up!" This time it was both Kaito and Conan who shouted at Ayumi.

She cringed, wide-eyed, and ducked her head to hide the tears that came to her eyes. She had just wanted to defend her friends. Why were they so angry? She, Mitsuhiko, and Genta had wormed their way into a fair number of mysteries that Conan was trying to hog. He had often been mad at them, but would always give in after a time. So why was he so upset with them now? He definitely didn't look like he'd be changing his mind about that any time soon.

Ayumi couldn't suppress the shudder that ran down her spine. Somehow, she was beginning to get the feeling that this was one mystery that she and the other two shouldn't have poked their noses into. Were they going to be killed? Would Conan and this big teenager die with her, Genta, and Mitsuhiko, all because they had gotten themselves involved when they should have just gone home?

She sniffed.

VVVVVVVVVV

Ran sighed.

Maybe it would have been a better idea if she had chosen to remain with Akako and Saguru. They were kind and intelligent; surely it could not have been that bad?

But she quickly shook off the thought. They had different goals. Saguru and Akako were looking for two people who had gone missing for who-knows-what reason, as was she, but the chances that Nakamori Aoko, Kuroba Kaito (or Kaitou Kid), and Kudo Shinichi (or Edogawa Conan) were all together in the same location were very slim.

Most likely, the three of them were scattered in completely different locations. Shinichi and Kid captured (by different people for different reasons, most likely), and Aoko searching for her childhood friend: it would, in fact, be rather strange if they were all together.

But even so, wandering around all alone was not very appealing to her—especially when she had no idea where to go. She had just gone back and tried her home. All the windows were closed and the doors to both the residency and the office were locked. Where had her father gone?

Sighing, Ran was about to make her way to the nearby building to see if Detectives Takagi and Sato were still there…and then she thought that perhaps she had better check the Professor's house, as well.

She was not feeling very hopeful as she rang the bell, and so jumped out of her skin when the Professor opened the front door and darted out. He looked rather disappointed when he saw her, however,

"Ah, Ran-kun," said Professor Agasa, giving a forced smile. Ran felt decidedly odd—normally, the Professor wasn't one to disguise his emotions. "You wouldn't happen to have seen Shi- Conan-kun at any point in the recent past, would you?"

"No, actually," said Ran casually, pretending not to notice his slipup. "I've been looking for Shinichi since last night."

"Shi- Shinichi-kun?" Professor Agasa repeated nervously. "Why would you be looking for him? He's on a case, and he'll be back when it's done."

"Oh, yes, because he's been here all along, hasn't he?" said Ran. Her eyes glinted with suppressed frustration. "Always trying to puzzle out the mystery that surrounds him, living in _my house_ in disguise, never bothering to let me know, all because of this stupid case!" Professor Agasa cringed. Not to say that he hadn't expected her to find out _some_day, but the timing was just…

"Well, let me tell you something," Ran went on. Tears were beginning to pool in her eyes, and she couldn't stop them anymore than she could stop the words that were rushing from her mouth in a whirl. "Last night, three FBI agents came into my house. They told me about Shinichi being Conan, and how Ai-chan's in the same condition. They told me everything, and then told me that Shinichi and Ai-chan were actually in deliberate disguise to help this criminal organization by spying! And they wanted to take me hostage so that they could catch Shinichi through me. But I couldn't—I _can't_—believe that Shinichi would do something like that, and Ai-chan… Well, she's mysterious and quiet and not at all childlike, and I know that she doesn't like me at all, but she's obviously smart, and there're times when you can just see that something's hurting her inside, and she obviously has a good heart that's hurting. I don't know her all that well, but I just know that she'd never do that!"

Ran took a deep breath in an attempt to steady herself and calm her mind, but when her breaths grew a little more steady, what remained of her emotional barriers came crashing down. The tears began to flow in rivers, and she fell to her knees on the ground where she rocked herself back and forth with her face in her hands. She hardly noticed Professor Agasa kneeling beside her in concern.

"And there's the FBI and there's this organization and everything's so messed up, and somehow the Japanese police force is getting involved, too! The FBI came after me and I ran away, but after that when I tried calling Dad no one was home, and Mom left her office, and you weren't home, and Shinichi's phone was off so I tried Conan's number but this man shouted at me… And I found Detectives Sato and Takagi and asked them to help me, but they were suspicious of Shinichi and Ai-chan too, and then they got a letter from Shinichi that said there was a bomb, and they went to deal with that, but I went on my own and met Saguru-san and Akako-san, and they were looking for people, too! They have a friend named Kuroba Kaito who was also Kaitou Kid, but Kid disappeared on his last heist and no one knows why, but he didn't do it himself because after that he disappeared, and then his friend Nakamori Aoko didn't look too well the day after that, and then after that she suddenly disappeared and no one knew where she'd gone! And I'm so scared, Professor—it's like people are just disappearing off the face of the planet one after the other: Shinichi, Mom, Dad, and even people I'd never heard of before! And I almost expected everyone to be gone, and so I was so shocked when I rang the doorbell and you were here, because everyone's just vanishing and never reappearing! I even tried calling Hattori-kun and Kazuha-chan in Osaka, and no one answered at either house! Oh, Professor, I'm just lost…and I don't know where to look anymore…"

The Professor was rubbing Ran's back soothingly as she sobbed.

"It's all right…" he said to her calmly. What she needed at that moment was something solid in a world that seemed to be turning upside down before her eyes. "Things aren't always as bad as they seem, Ran-kun."

"Not as bad?" Ran asked with a bitter laugh as she raised her tearstained face from her hands. "You could always say that everyone decided to take a vacation without warning in some other country, but who'd believe that?"

"No," said Ai, coming out and speaking calmly as the Professor stood, helping Ran up with him.

Ran looked at the girl, unsure of how to look at her. She found, however, that she could hardly look at her at all. In fact, strange thoughts were beginning to circle in her mind.

This girl—woman, actually—had known who Shinichi was all along. She had been one of the few people who had known. No, scratch that—not only had she _known_ that Edogawa Conan was Kudo Shinichi, she had _worked_ with him on whatever the mess was that surrounded him, and her as well. Being the only two people in that condition, no doubt they had formed a connection or bond of sorts that could be understood by no other. Ran felt her chest tighten at the thought. All this time, had she been a burden? Shinichi had been trying so hard to solve the case and return to normal, and all the while she had only constantly scolded him to come home, and, on occasion, held suspicions about his disguise. No doubt that had only served to stress Shinichi out even further and increase his workload. Had Ai-chan been Shinichi's pillar of support throughout all that? When he had been tired of trying to convince her that he was Conan, not Shinichi, had Ai-chan sat beside him and comforted him, telling him that it was okay, that Ran simply didn't understand?

Ran guiltily averted her eyes. Why was she thinking this way? Ai-chan had never done anything to her, and her eyes were now compassionate. And all she could do was think about how Ai-chan might have been comforting and supporting Shinichi in the ways that she had wanted? Of all the times to be jealous…!

"In this case, almost everyone you mentioned is, in fact, in grave danger and tangled in the dangerous web of the Organization," Ai went on. Already in emotional turmoil as Ran was, it probably was not very easy to see from the outside that it had just gotten worse. "But we do have a Nakamori Aoko in our care. We haven't been able to get a word of sense out of her, but you're in a situation similar to her own—maybe she'll talk to you."

That was all that Ai said before she stepped back into the house, holding the door open for Agasa to stagger in, supporting Ran.

Inside, he sat her on a couch. Through the fog in her mind that was clearing much too slowly for her liking, Ran managed to notice that Ai had vanished. That brought her thoughts back to what she had been thinking moments before, and made her wonder.

She remembered that though Ai-chan had joined Conan's group of friends fairly early on after appearing, she had always made an effort to avoid her—Ran. Had Shinichi talked about her as Conan? No doubt he couldn't tell his classmates anything about her, for as Conan, he could see her as nothing but a guardian. But the fact of the matter was that they were best friends who had known each other all their lives, and Ai-chan knew that Conan was actually seventeen. So that meant that they had most likely had conversations as two adults when they could. Had Shinichi ever mentioned her to Ai-chan in such conversations?

Ran felt numb. Had he mentioned her with affection, causing Ai-chan's jealousy to direct her way? Or had he mentioned her constant prying and nagging with annoyance, making Ai-chan wary of her? The second sounded more likely. After all, the first assumed that Shinichi liked her in ways she was sure he didn't, and that Ai-chan liked Shinichi in that same way. Of course, it was possible. Just not as much as…

She felt her chest tighten so much that she couldn't breathe. Of all the silly things to do! All those times that she had guessed his identity, she had known that there was a reason why he was keeping it from her. But the thought that he was lying to her had been unbearable, and she simply _had_ to ask him. Now that she thought back, however, she had probably only caused more trouble. She should have trusted him—trusted that he would tell her when he could.

She began to choke, attempting to hold back sobs. She pulled her legs up in front of her and buried her face in her knees. Her jeans smelled terrible, she noticed vaguely. And yet the smell was somehow calming. Not of washing and cooking as her clothing usually smelled, but of dirt and trees and grass. The smell freed her, she realized. Because it told her that she had made an effort. That she had been running around, hiding in trees, and overall doing the best she could for the missing best friend that she loved.

So she stayed that way for a time. She heard Professor Agasa come in quietly and place something on the table before leaving again, but she did not look up. Eventually, the tears were all soaked up by her jeans, and her choked sobs had subsided as well. She slowly drew her face out of her knees.

She saw a mug of tea on the table in front of her—doubtlessly what Professor Agasa had brought—but did not question why he had brought it only about a minute after leaving her in the living room. Perhaps they had already been making tea for that other girl—Aoko. They had said something about her being distraught, hadn't they?

Giving an imperceptible shake of her head, Ran dried her tears on her sleeve and took a sip of the tea. She couldn't even find the energy to curse herself when the warm comfort that filled her from the inside with that one sip of tea brought two more tears slipping down her cheeks. And to think that some people called her strong…

"Are you…Mouri Ran?"

Ran did not even jump when an unfamiliar voice addressed her from behind. She looked around to see a girl standing there. She was about her own age, and she supposed they _did_ look a little similar, although the other girl's hair was much shorter than her own and in her opinion, even their faces did not seem much alike. And yet that girl's own friends had mistaken Ran for her? Strange... Maybe they were lacking sleep as much as she was. Or maybe they were just over-stressed.

"Nakamori Aoko, I suppose?" asked Ran quietly.

"Yes," said the girl. She walked over, sat on the couch beside Ran, and picked up the cup of tea waiting there.

Normally, one would wait to be invited before sitting and drinking tea that way. However, at that particular moment, neither had the energy for formalities.

"A boy named Conan stays—stayed—in my house," Ran began, staring into her tea. "One night, he got a strange note from a woman who came to see my father—he's a detective. Dad was a little annoyed, and told Conan-kun to read the letter. It sounded like a threat, or maybe blackmail. But then Conan-kun ran off, saying that he'd come here. That night, as I found out later, he was attacked not far from my home and kidnapped soon afterwards. But at a ridiculously late hour at night, three men came to my house. They wanted to talk to me. They said that Conan-kun was actually Shinichi, a childhood friend of mine who disappeared on the same day that Conan-kun appeared, and that he'd shrunk himself as a disguise. Ai-chan was in the same condition too, they said, and they were convinced that the two of them were spies for some criminal organization. But Shinichi's a detective, and I was positive that he'd never do anything like that, so I ran away. I spent the night in a park, and in the morning went to some detectives I know. I also tried calling my parents, but I couldn't reach either; I tried Shinichi's phone, and it didn't work, so I tried Conan-kun's number. A man answered and shouted at me. Then I found out that Conan-kun had been attacked and kidnapped, and the detectives who were helping me found out that there was a bomb in the building that we were investigating from a letter from Shinichi. I don't know what to make of anything now, because they say that Shinichi was kidnapped, and yet he wrote a letter about the bomb and had it delivered. Does that mean he got away, or that they threatened him into writing it?"

Ran sighed. Then she looked up at the other girl.

"After that, I met two people—Saguru-san and Akako-san. I believe they're friends of yours. They were looking for you and a friend of yours named Kuroba Kaito." Aoko averted her eyes and did not reply. "What happened to you?"

Aoko remained silent for a time. Ran did not press her for a reply. She swirled her tea, watching the light reflect on the surface as she took the occasional sip.

"I was protesting against Kid on the night of his heist," Aoko began. "But when he disappeared, and not in any usual way either, I was probably more shocked than I should have been. Kaito was staring at these papers for all of last week, and that made me nervous. I always tried to read them, and he'd never let me. I tried to convince him, but he wouldn't listen. The most I got was a glance at one at lunchtime on the day of the heist, but that scared me. It was written in letters from the newspaper—the kind that people do when they're writing threats and don't want to be known. And so I was already shaken that night, and when I heard that Kid had just disappeared, and not in his usual flamboyant way, I was nervous. The next morning, I just wanted reassurance that the world was still turning the right way, so I went to Kaito's house a bit earlier than usual. Only…he wasn't there, and apparently hadn't been since the night before. I was even more nervous, so I tried climbing into his room through the window. I found the notes—they were right under his pillow. They were all threats—'hand over the Pandora now' and 'do as we say if you value your life'—but they were all addressed to Kid. I just didn't understand why letters to that…that _thief_ would be in Kaito's room, but then I heard people at the window. I did the first thing I could think of and hid other the bed. I think it must have been two men that came in—I heard two men's voices anyway—and they were just talking and talking and talking. They said how it was odd that Kid was so young, and they mentioned that they 'couldn't leave without the evidence'. They wanted the letters, I guess, because as soon as they saw them on the bed where I'd left them, they took them and left again. But throughout the whole thing, they were talking like Kaito was Kid! I couldn't believe it! Of all the absurd…! But then I got to school…"

Aoko's lips were trembling now. Ran still did not press her. She pitied this poor girl. She herself had not been too shocked to learn that Conan and Shinichi were one and the same—it was a suspicion that had always lingered at the back of her mind, after all. But this girl obviously cared for Kaito and despised Kid. To learn that they were one…

"At school, Kaito was absent. I thought he'd come—I waited and waited—but he didn't. And then I started to wonder, what if he actually was Kid? And oh, I felt so horrible for thinking that. But Kaito didn't come all day. I got worried, then, so I did the only thing I could think of—I went out to look for him. I was lucky that those men in Kaito's room had loose jaws, because I had some information. They'd mentioned taking 'the thief' to Haido City Hotel, and something about a boy and girl they wanted from Beika City. I was pretty sure that if they thought Kaito was Kid, then he was probably the thief they were taking to Haido City Hotel. So I went there. I asked after Kaito at the reception. They said that they _had_ seen someone like that, and he'd left that morning. I was surprised that they all remembered what he looked like, and they shrugged and said anyone would have. I asked why. They said…" Aoko took a deep breath. "They said that he'd had two large, muscular men in black on either side, his clothes were in tatters, he was bruised with one cheek bleeding, and there were black circles under his eyes like he hadn't slept in ages, but he was expressionless as though nothing was wrong. I asked if they knew where he'd gone, but they were looking at me suspiciously and said no. So I left alone. I only had a little money, and it was night by then, but I didn't want to spend the night in a hotel and use all that money up at once. So I wandered around, and eventually went to sleep in a park. I started wandering around again this morning after I bought a small breakfast at a 7-11, but then I had no idea where to look again. When I was wandering around, asking in various places if anyone had seen anyone like Kaito, the Professor here found me and asked what was wrong. I guess I was panicking at that point…so he calmed me down and brought me here."

Aoko took a deep breath. Then she narrowed her eyes and looked straight at Ran.

"Kaito can't be Kid. I just know he can't!" Ran blinked in surprise. "I mean, if he were Kid, that'd mean that he's been lying to me for years, right? He wouldn't do that! Unless, maybe if there were some reason that made him really determined to be Kid, but Kaito doesn't have that kind of seriousness in him! He might have an excellent poker face, but he's only occasionally serious—he's generally a goofball! If he really had something serious enough for him to go all over the place stealing and returning jewels and lying to everyone about it, he wouldn't have the time or presence of mind to joke around the way he does! And he would have _told_ me!"

Ran stared. Aoko's eyes were fluttering left and right, and her eyes were narrowed with a defiant light shining in them. This reminded her of something…didn't she act like that sometimes? When did she act this way? But Aoko wasn't finished.

"And what about those times that I met him at Kid heists? How could he do that if he were really Kid? Kid may be a magician, and Kaito may be able to do some silly tricks, too, but even the best magician can't talk to a friend and watch while he steals something five hundred feet away at the same time! It just doesn't fit! Those guys must have been wrong—maybe they caught Kid and then Kid got away and kidnapped Kaito to put in his place to keep them from realizing that he was gone. I know it sounds ridiculous, but the idea of Kaito being Kid is even more ridiculous! It can't be! Kid's a cheeky thief that steals precious gems just for the fun of it, and even returns them later. Kaito's a goofball with irritating moments, but he has a good heart underneath it all. Those people must be wrong!"

Aoko crossed her arms with a huff and glared at Ran as though daring her to contradict her.

And then it struck Ran. _Denial_. Goodness knows she had acted that way often enough when she hadn't wanted to believe something—granted, she generally tried not to do it in public. When she was young, she had found that people could tell when she was in denial from her tendency to argue much more than she ordinarily would have. It was better to just not mention it.

Ran herself had had no need for denial upon hearing that Conan was Shinichi. Conan hadn't even been living with her a month the first time the thought had crossed her mind. And after that, with every time that she suspected and was somehow proved wrong, her suspicion had grown. By the time that she had been told that Conan was Shinichi, it really couldn't even have been called a surprise anymore. On a subconscious level, Ran had expected to learn that very fact for sure at any given time.

But things were obviously different for Aoko. It was apparent that she had _never_ suspected it—no, perhaps she had suspected before, but either the evidence had been too weak for her to take it very seriously, or she had shoved the suspicions aside and refused to look at them full in the face. Well, if she hated Kid and loved Kaito (and she obviously did, and though Ran was not so presumptuous as to assume what _sort_ of love it was, she had her suspicions), then it would make sense that she would not want to see the truth. It was one matter to realize that two separate identities that you were familiar with were one; it was ten times worse when you had strong emotions for both of the two—strong emotions on opposite ends of the spectrum.

Ran sighed and shook her head.

"You don't believe me?" Aoko asked. Ran looked up quickly, but the girl's face was emotionless.

Ran quickly shook her head. She mentally reprehended herself. She was acting as though Saguru-san and Akako-san were right and Kuroba Kaito was Kaitou Kid. Who was she to judge? She had never even met the person in question, and the three people that she had spoken with who did know him on a personal level were not people that she had known before today. Of course Aoko would be in denial! She had been forced to look the _possibility_ that Kuroba Kaito was Kid in the face. Whether or not Kuroba Kaito was Kid _was_ not apparent.

"That wasn't what I meant. I was just thinking that we're faced with similar situations—hearing that two people we were familiar with were the same identity—and reacting in completely different ways. I'm sorry—I really can't say much in the way of believing or disbelieving what you say, since I really don't know all that much. I just know what I'm hearing from you now, and what Saguru-san and Akako-san told me earlier."

"Oh yes," said Aoko, suddenly alert. "Did they have any idea what might have happened to Kaito?"

Ran did not hesitate for more than a moment before shaking her head.

"No. Nothing. That was why I separated from them—none of us had any leads, so there really wasn't any point in hoping that I'd do better by going with them." Something told her that it wasn't a good idea to tell this girl that her two friends believed Kuroba Kaito to be Kid as well. She herself knew nothing, so she would do best to not spout more possibilities to the already distressed girl. Even worse would be to mention what the FBI agents had said to her—she had deliberately left the part about the photo album out from her story.

Aoko blinked a moment, and then suddenly smiled. A light blush rose to her cheeks, as though she had only just realized that she had ranted to someone who was almost a complete stranger about her opinion on something that did not concern her in the least.

"I'm sorry," she apologized. "I didn't mean to have you put up with all this. I really just meant to tell you what happened, but I got sort of caught up… I'm a little anxious at the moment."

Indeed, her smile was a little shaky.

"Don't worry," Ran smiled back. "All of us caught up in this mess are in trouble. I think we'd do best to pretend we've known each other for years and drop all the formalities."

Aoko laughed.

"Unorthodox, isn't it?"

"I, personally, don't have the time or energy left for 'orthodox'," Ran replied.

"Good," sighed Aoko tiredly. "I don't either."

"So do you think Shinichi and Kuroba-san are caught up in the same mess?"

"Probably," Aoko sighed again. "I mean, all these disappearances happening in one night? Maybe that criminal organization you mentioned is up to something."

"Or the FBI," Ran added.

"About that," Aoko said with furrowed brows, "What's the FBI doing in Japan?"

"You're asking me?"

"Well, you've met them."

"They didn't say anything about it."

"Yes, but you talked to them, right? They didn't say anything that you could make a guess from?"

"By the sound of it, they weren't concerned with anything but putting every single member of the Organization behind bars, using whatever means they could think of."

"But America has nothing to do with it!" protested Aoko. "This organization can't possibly be _that_ wide-spread, and it's rooted in Japan, from the sound of it. So what's the FBI doing?"

"You know," Ran murmured thoughtfully. "I think there might be someone I can ask about that."

"Ask?" Aoko looked at Ran dubiously. "Do you mean to say that you know someone who can get in touch with the FBI?"

"No," Ran replied with a winning grin as she stood. "But I might know someone who's _in_ the FBI."

VVVVVVVVVV

It was not until six hours later, when the sun had already set and all was dark, that the two girls stood in front of the apartment nervously. The Professor had convinced both of them to take baths, and then had noted the circles under Ran's eyes. So she had taken a short nap. Then she had realized that she could not remember the address, and so had asked the Professor for the spare key to her apartment that he kept in his home (which had been there since an incident involving Conan, a forgotten key, and nobody home).

"Don't get your hopes up," Ran said quietly to her new friend as they got into the elevator. "She might have moved. Actually, she said she'd be leaving six months ago. I'm just guessing—you know, if the FBI's still here, then maybe, just maybe, she ended up staying, too."

Aoko just nodded nervously.

Neither said anything more. The elevator opened, Ran led the way to the apartment in question, they rang the doorbell, and then they waited with their hearts in their throats.

Their hearts leapt when the door opened…

…And dropped right back into their stomachs when it was a middle-aged Japanese woman who appeared in the doorway.

"Why, hello," she said with a kind smile. "Can I help you?"

"Well…" Ran hesitated. But what other options did they have? So she threw caution to the wind. "We're looking for a woman named Jodie Saintemillion… Do you know her, by any chance?"

The woman's brows furrowed.

"Why, yes…" she replied. "She is the previous owner of this apartment."

"Then please," Ran begged in desperation, "Could you tell us where she is now?"

"I'm afraid I can't-" But the woman abruptly cut off her words and stared at Ran's face. "Is something the matter?" she asked instead, her tone suddenly concerned.

Aoko glanced curiously to the side, and almost staggered back in shock. Ran's face had suddenly gone white as a sheet.

Aoko opened her mouth to ask, but,

"Jodie-sensei?" Ran murmured faintly, looking ready to pass out. This woman couldn't possibly be her teacher—her Japanese was flawless, she looked Japanese, she acted Japanese…and yet she could have sworn that she saw a glimpse of her teacher, as though the corner of a mask had fluttered out of the way for a brief second.

The woman in the doorway shook her head.

"I can't talk here," she said quietly. "But, Mouri-san, I believe that I know why you're here. Listen. Meet me at the café by the bookstore in half an hour." Then her voice rose again, returning to its normal level. "I'm very sorry that I couldn't be of assistance. I hope it doesn't inconvenience you too much."

Her eyes urged them to play along.

"Oh no," Ran hastily objected, bowing as though to a stranger. "I was just hoping to speak with her again… It was nothing important."

"I really am very sorry…"

So, exchanging polite nothings as any strangers would, the woman retreated back into her apartment and Ran and Aoko left.

"Ran-san?" asked Aoko hesitantly. "You don't mean to tell me…" She trailed off. What else could she say?

Ran simply shook her head. "I have no idea…but we'll find out soon enough, won't we? Let's go straight to the café. It'll give us time to think, and it's not like we have anything better to do."

Aoko sighed her agreement, and they headed for the café.

_Author's Note: Okay… I'd appreciate it if you'd not go for the razors and jackknifes and saws… I'm very sorry for the delay. Again. So much for that promise, right? Which is why I'm not making any promises this time. I'll just say this: I will try my best to have the next chapter up within the month in apology for the wait so far. Sure, it sounds ridiculous, but it actually doesn't take all that long for me to write—once I get settled down in front of the computer. It's that part that takes a while._

Thank you so much for the reviews! For those of you who haven't reviewed, I'm still replying to reviewers—only in a different way. There's this wonderful thing called review replies, which I'm (finally) making use of. And even if you're an anonymous reviewer, if you leave your email address, I'll send you an email in reply. Good? Good.

Another apology—it's taken ages to try and upload this thing. I tried day after day and it just wouldn't work... And in the end, I ended up copying everything into a .txt file. Which, of course, meant that I had to go through the whole thing after _I'd uploaded it and redo the styles in html format. So can we agree that I've already paid the price for my late update?_

One last thing: even though I haven't been good about expressing it, reviews are what keep this story going… So review!


	11. Perilous Witch

**Perilous Danger**

**Chapter 10: Perilous Witch**

"So now Sh- Conan-kun is gone, and I really have no idea-"

Aoko nudged Ran sharply in the ribs. Ran turned red. She was still trying to adjust to her former teacher's suddenly flawless Japanese, and found herself slipping up in other areas of tension as she did so. But it definitely couldn't be a good idea to keep on slipping when saying Conan-kun's name. "A…anyhow…"

"Sorry to interrupt, but that's actually not the information we're looking for. Why is the FBI investigating the criminal organization known to us as the Black Organization?" Aoko spoke with a professional air that she had probably learned from her father.

Jodie was quiet for a few moments, and sipped her coffee thoughtfully.

"First answer two questions of mine. First—how did you come to know of the Black Organization?" she finally asked quietly.

Aoko and Ran exchanged a glance.

"Well, in my case, my friend seems to have gotten tangled up with them, because they seem to think that he's Kaitou Kid. My friend's missing, so I'm looking for him. And on the way I met a number of people who're aware of"

"And in my case, three people who claimed to be FBI agents came to my house in the middle of the night and wanted to take me hostage because they say that Conan-kun is working with the Black Organization."

"I see… And now for my other question—how much exactly do you two know of the FBI?"

Ran and Aoko exchanged a puzzled glance.

"Well…" Ran began, "It's the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the United States of America…"

"It deals with national security, interstate crime, and crimes against the government," Aoko supplied.

Jodie nodded. "And how much do you know about its policies?"

Ran and Aoko fell silent and exchanged another glance. Neither could tell what Jodie was trying to say.

"Then I'll be more clear." Jodie set down her coffee mug and looked them straight in the eye. "Were either of you aware that the FBI is strictly a _national_ organization?"

Ran and Aoko just stared blankly.

"In other words," Jodie went on, "It is illegal for any member of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to conduct investigations overseas without certain agreements made. These agreements, however, rely on certain international treaties and contracts and such, and are therefore very tedious and hence are very rarely made. Therefore, when the United States needs some criminal caught or organization spied on or anything similar, it usually asks the government of the country in which the investigation must be conducted."

Ran's eyes widened.

"And…and what if the country's government refused?" she asked.

"Then they'd be lost, wouldn't they? If it's simply spying that they need, they could ask an ordinary citizen, but that could be dangerous for the citizen."

"So…so the FBI people that I met-"

"Could _not_ have been members of the FBI, because they _cannot_ make such investigations overseas."

"But…" Ran was thoroughly confused. "But they said-"

Jodie's eyes were piercing.

"Regardless of what they said, regardless of what they may have done, they could _not_ be members of the FBI," Jodie said firmly. Ran's brow furrowed, and she stared at her former teacher. She had a feeling that Jodie was trying to tell her something with her eyes, but what she could not fathom.

"So…you're still on vacation and since you're not in America, you can't help us," Ran guessed. Yes, that would make sense, but that couldn't be everything. What was she missing? What was Jodie-sensei trying to tell her?

Ran looked over at Aoko, but there was a deep crease in the other girl's brow—she didn't seem to understand any more than Ran did.

"Yes," Jodie said, raising an eyebrow. "But I would have thought that that much would have been obvious."

So that _wasn't_ what she was trying to say? Then what _was_ she saying?

"For example…" Aoko started slowly, not too sure whether she should be saying this, "Just hypothetically speaking, of course…if an FBI agent _were_ working in Japan, why would they be doing it?"

"Why does anyone break the law?" Jodie asked.

"Because they don't care?" Aoko suggested.

But Ran's eyes had widened.

"No," she said. "I mean, of course, some people break the law because they don't care, but the people in the FBI obviously care, right? So if they're desperate enough to break the law and investigate in Japan, then there must be something that's more important to them than the law…right?"

"Probably," said Jodie noncommittally. "But still, I wouldn't just run off on my own to investigate something illegally, even if I did have some deeply rooted and well defined reason for doing it."

"Then," said Ran slowly, "If members of the FBI were, hypothetically, investigating in Japan, there would probably be a higher person with some passionate reason why he wanted to investigate the Black Organization; and then he would have created a team of people with similar grudges against the Organization while they were still in America, right?"

"Most probably, yes," smiled Jodie.

"And then, hypothetically," Aoko continued, catching on, "They'd start investigating in America for a while before moving to Japan. They'd want all the information they could get beforehand, since Japan would be something of a last resort to them."

"That would probably be true," Jodie replied.

"So, Jodie-sensei," Ran addressed her teacher. Her eyes were serious. "If, just if, you were to illegally investigate the Black Organization in Japan, what would your motivation be?"

"That's a hard and personal question, Mouri-san." Jodie gave a small smile of amusement. "Even if it is hypothetical."

Ran went red. She hadn't meant to overstep any boundaries.

"I- I'm sorry. I didn't-"

"It would probably be the death of a family member," Jodie said, cutting Ran off. "If a family member of mine were murdered, for example. Say that you were a young child—maybe ten years old or less—and you adored your father. Then one day he was murdered, and you unknowingly witnessed the crime before your house was set on fire, something from which you barely managed to escape. I believe that such a life-changing experience would remain powerful enough in the child's memory that if, for example, this child grew up and learned that her father's murderer was in such an organization as the Black Organization, she would have been willing to overstep the law to investigate her father's murderer.."

A flash of something powerful appeared in Jodie's eyes; but it was gone no more than a second later, and Aoko and Ran wondered if they had imagined it.

At least ten questions—hypothetical questions, of course—leapt into Ran's mind at once. But, naturally, voicing ten thoughts, be they statements, orders, complaints, questions, or anything else, at once is beyond human capability, and she found that she could say nothing at all.

So it was Aoko that spoke.

"So given this hypothetical scenario in which FBI agents illegally investigate some criminal organization in Japan, they wouldn't have as many materials to work with as ordinary FBI agents, right? So it would be possible for them to get things wrong, like that a perfectly innocent teenaged boy is a jewel thief, or that a victim is one of his perpetrators in a crime?"

"Such things happen even without the lack of ordinary materials, Nakamori-san," said Jodie seriously. "Even with the most modern technology; even with access to every information database in the United States; even among the most celebrated FBI agents. FBI agents still are only human, and humans are in no way omniscient. By which I mean to say, while the answer to your question is 'yes', I wouldn't necessarily say that it has all that much to do with this 'illegal investigation' scenario."

Aoko nodded. It was strange—when she found her voice, the words that she could hear leaving her mouth were calm, collected, and mature; yet every fiber of her being was simply screaming with the desire to stand up and stomp right there shouting for the world to hear that Kuroba Kaito was not, not, _not_ Kaitou Kid before running off to resume her search for him.

Sure, Jodie was nice, and very informed on the situation. But 'very informed' did not seem to particularly exceed her and Ran's range of knowledge. While this 'hypothetical' conversation was intriguing, it felt more like they were making to solve the mystery behind the entire situation rather than simply find the two missing persons. And while the idea of solving this…mystery was all well and good, Aoko didn't really feel that it was in their power to do so. And even if it were, to do so would doubtlessly put a great deal at stake—including the two persons that she and Ran sought.

That was no gamble Aoko was willing to make, and she had a feeling that Ran would agree with her on this. So she decided to make that clear.

"I'm sorry, but we appear to have been side-tracked. Can we return to the issue of the two missing persons?"

"Of course," said Jodie, smiling serenely.

"So it could not be FBI agents that are after them. I understand. But in all honestly, _who_ the pursuers are doesn't mean very much to us right now. We're not trying to go after the pursuers or kidnappers or whatever. We just want our friends back."

"I understand how you feel, Nakamori-san." Jodie looked at the girl with hard eyes. "But tell me—do the persons whom you seek feel the same way?"

Ran and Aoko stared at her, and Jodie went on.

"Would the two persons whom you seek be content to simply be found? Nakamori-san, I know nothing of this person whom you seek, and so can say very little of him. However, Mouri-san, I believe I can presume to know Conan-kun at least a little better than a mere acquaintance. Tell me: would he be contented to merely be found? Would he not want to solve the complicated mess that surrounds him before backing away?"

Ran's eyes narrowed.

"I don't care," she said, and she met Jodie's hard gaze with one of her own. "I'll find him. If I find him and he refuses to come back because he wants to solve this 'case', then I'll deal with that then. For now, I want—I _need_ to find him."

Ran and Jodie stared at each other in silence for a few moments, as though each was testing the other's resolve. Then, to Ran's surprise, Jodie smiled.

"Very well. While I can be of no direct assistance, I will do what I can. First of all, Mouri-san, have you called everyone whom you believe could help you?"

"Yes," shrugged Ran.

"Your parents?"

Ran bit her lip. "My father answered neither his cell phone, nor the house phone. My mother's secretary told me that she received a phone call on her private line and left almost as soon as she arrived at work."

Jodie's brow furrowed thoughtfully, but she pressed on with the questions. "You have, of course, tried Conan-kun's cell phone."

"Of course."

"And Agasa-san?"

"He wasn't home, and he wasn't answering his cell phone—but he forgets that at home some times, so I don't think that's any cause for alarm."

"I see. And Suzuki-san?"

Ran stared at her former teacher for a few moments before she replied. "No, of course not. I mean…how could Sonoko help?" Jodie raised an eyebrow, asking silently if she really meant that. She didn't, of course, but she wasn't about to tell Jodie-sensei that she couldn't bear to tell Sonoko that her 'mysterious bursts of genius' were actually Shinichi using her body as a tool to make his solutions known… "I mean, I wouldn't want her to panic or anything. She's got a busy enough life as it is, and I would just stress her out with something that she can't-"

"Mouri-san," said Jodie. Ran blinked at the gentle tone, and realized for the first time that her eyes were full of tears. "If you were caught unawares and pulled into a vortex of trouble, is it not likely that Suzuki-san, too, is already involved just as much? She too could be considered a valuable information-holder if these…people are so desperate to find Conan-kun. Perhaps, even without your informing her of anything, she is already involved."

Ran felt her blood go cold. Jodie had really struck a chord there. Shinichi had been using Sonoko as Conan, just as he had used her father. So, in all likelihood, the FBI agents (who weren't really FBI agents) would go after Sonoko and her father when they failed to find her.

Whipping out her phone, she swiftly hit the buttons before raising the phone to her ear with trembling hands. It rang…and the line went dead. Bringing the phone away from her ear, Ran frowned down at it in confusion. What had just happened? Puzzled, she tried dialing again, only to receive the same results—just after fewer rings.

When, baffled, she tried again, it was a man who answered. "Look, I don't know where she is, okay? I'm sorry! Now just let us be!" And he hung up.

Ran stared down at her phone; it took a few moments to register what she had just heard.

Aoko saw her new friend's face go pale, and then dead white, and realized that she would faint a split second before she did. She and Jodie shot forward at the same moment to catch the teen's limp body.

Jodie looked down at Ran's white, tortured face with sympathy. She understood that the girl was living a nightmare, and wished more than ever that she could help.

VVVVVVVVVV

Conan let the rain strike him steadily on his head, arms, legs, back and shoulders. It felt oddly calming, and he reveled in it. For the first time in what felt like years, he pushed away all the fears and horrible possibilities, and let himself remain calm and serene.

He wondered if there would come a day when he could live without those constant anxieties that seemed to await him at every twist and turn in his path these days… It was not, after all, very unlikely that he would be dead before the collapse of the Organization—if it collapsed at all.

Conan opened his eyes. Sadly, he registered that now that he was thinking such thoughts, he was back to his normal frame of mind. True, he wasn't exactly safe with people out to kill him everywhere, but it was still nice to have a few moments of peace.

"Hey." The voice was tentative and shaky. Conan looked up at Mitsuhiko with tired eyes.

"Yeah?"

"I just- I just wanted to say sorry. For all of us." Mitsuhiko gulped nervously, and Conan registered that the boy was carefully not looking at him. "We're all sorry we got in your way, Conan-kun."

Conan stared at Mitsuhiko, suddenly wide awake and fully aware of everything around him. The beating of the rain against his shoulders and head seemed insignificant in light of the acute guilt that was suddenly stinging his chest.

He knew that the Detective Boys were children; he knew that they thought him a child. Was the way to treat a child to push them away and tell them that they were too young to understand? No—that only ignited curiosity and frustration. He should know. He may not be a child, but he _had_ once been their age.

If he was going to think of them as children that considered him a child, he should have them as such. He should never have pushed them away directly, but used subtle maneuvers that would have made them lose interest. If children ever listened to adults telling them to stay out of things, it was in fear. He did not have that power over them, so why had he insisted on trying to use it, time and time again?

Sighing, Conan stood. "No—I should be apologizing, Mitsuhiko." He looked at the boy with level, solemn eyes. "I haven't been fair to any of you."

"No," Mitsuhiko agreed. There was a pause. "Will you explain what we're doing now?"

"Sure." Conan was more resigned to the inevitable than anything. Now that things had come this far, _not_ telling them was hardly an option. "We should get back inside first."

So it was that he ended up sitting in their hideout, an old rundown warehouse in downtown Tokyo, attempting to explain the situation without telling them too much.

"See, it all started before I became Conan. I was a different person, living a different life. Then I had a run-in—kind of unfortunate, really—with two bad guys who poisoned me. I was curious about them," he added before Ayumi could ask the question that he could just _see_ forming in her throat, "and I'd been doing some snooping around that they didn't like. That was why they poisoned me. The poison didn't work, obviously." Conan gave them a wide grin and lifted his arms. "But I didn't know what to do. Professor Agasa found me, and made me realize that if the men found out that their poison hadn't worked on me, they'd probably come after me again. So I changed my name and entered your school. Meanwhile, I've been hunting for information. All I really knew were the men's code names, but I've learned that they were part of a secret organization. I haven't really figured out what they're all about, but they've realized that I'm not who I say I am."

"How?" Ayumi's question was quiet and tentative, as though she feared being snapped at again.

Conan spread his hands and sighed. "It turns out that one of the people who's in the Organization was friends with my mother. She realized who I really was after a while."

"Then…you look different, too?" Genta asked, puzzling out what Conan was telling him.

Conan nodded. "Quite different. The poison didn't kill me, but it changed my appearance."

"So the person who came after us was trying to kill you?"

"Probably."

"Why?"

Conan laughed; the Detective Boys looked at him as though he had lost his mind.

"It's a _secret_ organization. No one outside of it is supposed to even know it exists! Not only do I know it exists, I've been consorting with Haibara for ages, so they're going to know that I have more than enough knowledge to be a threat."

It was not until after he had spoken, when he saw the strange way that the Detective Boys were looking at him, that he realized exactly what he had said. He knew he paled visibly.

"Haibara?" repeated Genta.

"What's Ai-chan got to do with it?"

Conan could not answer immediately. For one thing, he was a little busy cursing himself for bringing her name into the conversation in the first place. For another thing, he didn't think that it was fair to tell his friends about Haibara when she wasn't there—after all, they were not only _his_ friends, but _her_ friends as well.

He found himself looking to Kaito for help. But Kaito only shrugged with a roll of his eyes that said plainly, "You've told them that much, why don't you tell them all the rest now? Like how you're actually the famous Kudo Shinichi and are actually ten years older than you look? I'm sure they'll take that well." Conan shot Kaito a glare, but had the presence of mind to be immensely grateful that this had not been said out loud.

Telling them that he was involved in some mystery or intrigue was one thing; explaining that he was actually ten years older than them was quite different. And now that _Haibara_ had been brought into the equation…

"Conan-kun?" asked Mitsuhiko, jolting him out of his thoughts.

Oh, yes. The issue of Haibara.

"Sorry—I can't tell you." Conan averted his eyes; he was not surprised in the least and the outraged cries of protest that all three children made at once.

"-_said _you'd explain-"

"-been wondering for _ages_-"

"-just say, "Oh, I can't tell you", well then why are you-

"-like we're some kind of inferior to you-"

"-been helping each other for ages—isn't friendship supposed to-"

"-select the information you give us, then why tell us anything?"

"Look, it's her story to tell!" Conan shouted above the ruckus. The Detective Boys quieted, but continued to glare. "I'm telling you my story; I won't tell you hers, because it's not my place. She doesn't even tell me everything, so believe me, you'll be better off waiting for her to tell you herself."

Even Ayumi, more determined than Genta and Mitsuhiko put together, couldn't argue with that, and Conan was sincerely grateful that they didn't have eyes on the back of their heads. Because behind them, Kaito grinned, gave Conan the thumbs-up, and mouthed, "Great cover!"

"So I guess you'll want us going home now?" sighed Genta, resigned. Conan's eyes widened.

"No!" Conan scarcely noticed that his voice overlapped with Kaito's and went on frantically. "Don't you understand? With these guys, once you're involved, there's no getting out again. They'll know that you're aware of them now—I'll bet that they had you on the 'Must Be Killed' list before sunset! You guys were already friends of mine, so you can be sure they's already be fully aware of who you are—now they just need to move you from the 'Potential Threats' list to the 'Must Be Killed' list!"

"Bu- but," Genta smiled shakily, "they wouldn't have lists like that! It's not like they're out to kill everyone who-"

"No, Genta, they _are_ out to kill everyone who could blow their cover. They're not going to take pity on you just because you're a kid."

The Detective Boys looked rather faint, and Conan briefly wondered if he had been too harsh on them. But he shook the thought out of his head. They may be mere children, but they had to understand how dire the situation was.

"So should we get disguises too?"

"Pardon?"

"Well, you're usually in disguise, right? With the glasses? So-"

"Wait—how did you know that?" Conan's eyes were wide and a little wild, Kaito noted with amusement.

"You don't really need glasses. So we figured that you were wearing them because you thought it made you look smarter or something, but it was actually a disguise, wasn't it?"

Conan stared at them. "Wait," he protested weakly. "What makes you think I don't really need-"

"You're not wearing glasses now," Mitsuhiko pointed out.

Conan blinked, and then felt his face flush. He reached up and touched his face, just to make sure. After all, he had been wearing those things every day for months; his glasses were a perfectly ordinary part of his everyday attire, easily taken for granted. So not having them should have been something that he would have been a little more aware of, right?

But they were definitely gone. Not that there was much of a shock. He could, after all, remember the horrible ruins that were his deliberately broken glasses. (Speaking of which, weren't Haibara and the Professor _ever_ going to check for the trackers and come after him? He would have thought that they would have done so long ago; were they harmed? But those were thoughts for later.) He should have known perfectly well that those things were gone. How could he have missed that? And neither Ayumi nor Genta nor Mitsuhiko had even said a thing… So they had known that he hadn't needed glasses for a while then. Why hadn't they said anything? If _they_ could tell, then who knew who else could! He must have been doing something wrong; he had to find out what.

Not that it really mattered, since his identity as Edogawa Conan wasn't much of a secret with the Organization anymore. He may as well discard all attempts at disguise and cover-ups and just run through the streets waving his arms and screaming for the world to hear that he was Kudo Shinichi, brilliant teen detective.

Then Conan suddenly realized that his friends were extremely busy discussing, in total, absolute, complete seriousness, what sort of glasses they ought to buy. Which would make them look most different while still allowing them to retain their natural good looks. (Well, Ayumi and Genta were discussing that part. Mitsuhiko seemed to feel that he would look more intelligent with almost any glasses, so he didn't need to worry about that part.) That sounded like a conversation that needed stopping. Badly. Before they ran away with themselves and decided to go buy wigs and clothes and everything else.

"No," Conan interrupted, shaking his head.

"Why?" Ayumi asked immediately; Conan didn't think he'd ever seen her look more cheerful. Odd, considering their situation. "It worked for you; it'll work for us?"

"Because I wasn't wearing the glasses to disguise myself from the Organization!" Conan said, throwing his hands up in despair. At this rate, he would have to throw caution to the wind and tell them everything.

"Then who were you trying to disguise yourself from?" demanded Ayumi.

"Ran," said Conan, and was already cursing himself before the name was fully out of his mouth. He saw all three of them open their mouths to ask more questions, and hastily went on. "Look—I told you that the poison changed what I looked like. I've been relying on that to hide me from the Organization. The only downside is that a person who already knew me as…my original self wouldn't have any trouble telling who I was. Ran knew me very well as my original self, so I needed something that would make that harder. The glasses were a split-second decision, but they worked—most of the time."

"Then wouldn't it be safer to use glasses, because it would at least make recognition a little harder, right?" pressed Genta.

"True," Conan conceded with a sigh. He rubbed his temples, which were beginning to pound again. "But tell me—where would you _find_ said glasses?"

"In a store?"

"And so you'd just walk out with the glasses frames without paying?"

"I have three hundred yen!"

"I have a thousand."

"I have…five hundred fifty, I think."

"Genta-kun, that's two hundred and five."

"Oh."

"So," Conan interrupted impatiently, "you intend to buy three glasses frames with a thousand five hundred and five yen?" By the Detective Boys' looks, they had no idea how much said items cost. "It's not enough. And you'd be better off saving that money for when we really need it."

"Oi." Conan looked over at Kaito, who was sitting by a window. "The rain's getting harder—we ought to get moving."

"Why should we be moving?" asked Ayumi—apparently, now that Conan was properly conversing with them again, their fear of asking questions was gone. "Wouldn't it be better to stay put?"

"Not at all," said Kaito distractedly. "If we stay put and any one of them saw which direction we came, it'll make it all the easier for them to find us. Better that we keep on the move. And if we're lucky, we'll be able to find what we're looking for."

Conan snorted. Kaito raised an eyebrow.

"'What we're looking for'? Kuroba, you've got to wait till the full moon, and I've got to find Haibara. Shouldn't we be heading for the Professor's house?"

"Are you daft?" demanded Kaito.

"Come off it, Kuroba. They know who we are—they're going to be after our friends and family anyway. We ought to find them and make sure… Kuroba?" Conan trailed off when he noticed Kaito's face go white and his eyes turn unfocused, as though he was staring at something far away. When Kaito did not reply, Conan tried again. "Kuroba? You okay?"

"Aoko," Kaito breathed in apparent horror. "I can't believe I didn't think of it. Aoko!" He turned to Conan as he stood. "Sorry—I've got to go somewhere. I trust you can take care of three kids on your own for a while. Catch up with you later!"

That said, Kaito was out the door and running through the rain. "Kuroba!" Conan tried calling, but Kaito was already gone. Conan stared, and then sighed. "Well, there goes my only ally."

"We're your allies," came a tentative voice from behind him after a brief pause. He turned, rather surprised. Then he grinned at his three friends.

"I know you are." Grins spread across their faces as well, and then Conan turned towards the door. "Right; let's go."

But they had been walking for no more than two minutes when Conan thought that he saw a shadow dart across an alley out of the corner of his eye. He stiffened. For a moment, he tried to warn himself that he shouldn't be panicking, but then threw that thought to the wind. This was definitely a time to panic. If they were being followed, then they wouldn't be safe no matter where they hid.

"Here," hissed Conan as quietly as he could while it was still audible to all three Detective Boys as he darted into a convenience store that they were walking past. The Detective Boys looked mildly surprised, but knew better than to question him. As he urged them further into the shop where they wouldn't be visible through the glass front of the store, Conan didn't miss the girl at the register peering at them curiously.

"You do know that it's nine o'clock at night, right?" the girl asked them. Conan hadn't, but he nodded to her while he inwardly calculated the passage of time.

He guessed that they had spent between one and two hours running around to shake off the shooters before they had taken refuge in the warehouse. He remembered the aching and throbbing in his legs, and guessed that that was about right. Then, as they had rested, he had angrily shouted some more at the Detective Boys—in retrospect, he felt that he had probably just needed to take out his anger on something or someone—who had been too tired and frightened to argue back. Then exhaustion had let them sit in silence for a while; but it was far from a peaceful silence. Kaito and Conan had been so tense that even as they rested, willing their muscles to strengthen quickly, they had been constantly glancing out of windows and looking around out the door. It must have been quite a while later that Conan had decided that he was simply too exhausted and weary to take the tension, and had stormed outside to sit on the ground in the rain outside the warehouse.

Yes, a four-hour interval made perfect sense.

"You're not supposed to be out this late at night," the girl went on. "Are you lost?"

"No, no," Conan instantly attempted to reassure her with a smile. "Really. We just…took a long way home that took longer than we thought it would."

The girl frowned disapprovingly. "Do your parents know about that?"

"Yes, we called them," Mitsuhiko cut in. Conan had to admire how smoothly he could lie when the situation demanded. "But our homes aren't far from here, and our parents will probably be coming to meet us, so-"

"No, no." The girl shook her head; the disapproval in her eyes, no matter how she attempted to hide it, was thick as molasses. "Even a short walk is dangerous in the dark. I know you're all good children"-Conan had to pretend to cough to hide his scoff at the barely disguised emotional blackmail of that statement, and was amused to note that Mitsuhiko was pretending to wipe his nose with his hand to hide a scowl of recognition-"so you won't let a stranger like me follow you home. But if you call your Mommies, I'm sure they'd rather pick you up than you walk home on your own; if your homes aren't far away, it won't be any trouble, right?"

Even _Genta_ looked disgusted—but Conan was rather surprised to see that he did not lash out in anger as he usually did. Perhaps the gravity of their situation actually _had_ sunk into his friends' minds and hearts.

Not that that did anything to get them out of their trouble with an overly concerned teenage girl. Really, _why _did people always have to insist that being kind but careful of a child's wellbeing (whether or not the child liked it) was the ideal way to act around young children? What if said children had an important mission that involved dangerous men in black who carried guns and poisons and who knew what else?

But of course, the children were expected to tell adults about things like that and then leave it to them. Because adults, naturally, would have no problem dealing with said dangerous men even if their only solution was to call the police—the very people who had failed to even realize the _existence_ of this horrible organization for the Devil only knew how many decades!

_Right,_ Conan remembered just in time, _stay calm. It doesn't matter if there's a pompous child-pampering teen in front of you who thinks she knows better than a bunch of seven-year-olds but actually is the one in blissful innocence and ignorance while the seven-year-olds had to not only face down the most terrifying criminal organization in the world (even if that was a bit—yes, just a bit—of an exaggeration). It doesn't matter that she's blocking our way, so we not only have to take on the Organization but now_ get past this presuming teenager_ too!_

He wondered if he should be worried that he felt a pounding migraine-like headache coming on.

Some part of Conan's brain must have registered that Genta was doing his very best to control his temper and impatience while Ayumi, perfectly aware of this, was trying—not as inconspicuously as would have been ideal, but trying nevertheless—to soothe him as Mitsuhiko stammered and stuttered, all collectedness lost as he grasped at the strings. But that part of his brain was deep, deep down and overrun by the effort to keep his temper and anger under control. He would not have been in a much better state than Genta if not for the fact that he could keep his face impassive while he struggled internally; Mitsuhiko, shooting desperate glances that were pleas for help (all of which went unnoticed), noticed nothing of Conan's internal lack of control.

"Ah, there you are dears," said a kindly voice from behind them. All four children spun around; the girl at the counter looked across them at the newcomer. "I'm sorry, have they been causing any trouble?"

The fond, familiar way in which she looked at them seemed odd, since none of the Detective Boys had ever seen her before. Mitsuhiko faltered, wondering what to make of the situation, and Ayumi stared at the stranger in surprise; but Genta lost no time in narrowing his eyes at the old woman and demanding her identity. The girl behind the counter noticed this and looked rather suspicious.

"Ah, yes, I almost forgot that you don't know me," chuckled the old lady. "My grandson has shown me many photos of all of you, but of course he wouldn't go around showing his friends pictures of his poor grandmother, would he?"

If this statement surprised Conan, he hid it well, for the Detective Boys pinpointed him as the old woman's grandson by the lack of surprise on his face when they looked among themselves. Instantly, all three relaxed; so did the girl behind them at the counter.

"Oh, you're Conan-kun's grandma?"

"Yes, dear, but we can discuss that later." She turned to the girl behind the counter. "I'm very sorry; these children are an adventurous lot, you know—always out to explore or adventure some more. I daresay it worries me sometimes, even if they always do come back perfectly in tact."

The girl smiled. "Please, don't be bothered. We were all children once—we know what that curiosity is like. I just didn't think it was right for them to be wandering around alone at this time of night, so…"

"Well, thank you for your concern," the old lady said with a smile. "Now, if I could just purchase these items…" Gently pushing her way through the children, she placed a number of objects in her hands on the counter.

"Oh, yes, of course!" The girl looked rather flustered—apparently, in her concern for the children's wellbeing, she had forgotten about her job.

After the few odds and ends that the woman had picked out were bought and stowed in her shoulder bag, she walked out of the shop with the children at her heels. (Actually, since she was the one with the umbrella, they surrounded her to get a part of the shelter provided by the object.) Making her way down the street, she abruptly turned and entered a tiny alleyway. The children exchanged a look, but as Conan did not look surprised in the least, they accepted that this must be the way to his grandmother's home.

When the little old woman turned a corner and bent to lift a manhole cover, however, and Conan still looked not at all surprised, the Detective Boys _had_ to wonder what was going on.

"Why are we going into there?" Ayumi cautiously whispered to Conan, as though speaking too loudly would incite his 'grandmother's' wrath. Which was bound to be horrible; Ayumi just knew it.

Conan gave a sigh that seemed depressed and resigned. "She lives down there." Ayumi stared. "Well, at least she has a hideout down there that could pass for a person's home."

Something in Conan's tone—maybe the dull bluntness or the blatant irony…or perhaps it was the tired amusement, just barely detectable—made Genta snap his mouth shut, Mitsuhiko purse his lips in thought, and Ayumi obey the woman's wordless urging for them to climb down into the manhole. That was saying a lot, since the Detective Boys, even Genta, were all well aware that manholes led into the sewers.

A few minutes later found them all sitting in a comfortable little room, sitting on fluffy cushions and wrapped in thick, warm quilts as they sipped hot green tea. The little woman had heated the water in the room's fireplace. (_Dear god, _Conan had thought upon entering the cold, drafty room. _I'm actually looking at a fireplace in the sewers. Does this woman really live in a sort of mansion that's spread through the sewers?_)

The Detective Boys, unlike Conan, were perfectly delighted to be sipping hot tea and curled up in blankets in front of a fireplace. The fact that they were in the _sewers_, of all places, which had definitely unnerved them at first, seemed to be completely forgotten. _Of course,_ Conan conceded, _the fact that the smell doesn't reach us makes that a whole lot easier._

"It's almost night, dears," the little old woman said, pulling more cushions off of the pile in the corner and spreading them on the ground so that the floor was pretty much invisible under the cushions. "I'm sorry to say that I don't have any mattresses here for you to lie on, but the cushions and quilts ought to be enough."

The Detective Boys eagerly agreed and were scrambling for the 'best spot' that was the spot closest to the fireplace as soon as they finished their tea. They didn't even notice the woman chuckle a 'good night' to them as she picked up the small oil lantern before she stepped (crawled, more like) out of the room through the passage through which they had entered. Conan, however, did see and hear all this as he sat away from the arguing, watching everyone sharply—especially the old woman. But once she was gone, there was nothing for him to do. Except for settle the persisting argument, of course. But Mitsuhiko was bound to find the sensible solution sometime soon, so…

Sure enough, a few minutes later, Mitsuhiko proposed that they all sleep with their heads by the fire. Grudgingly, the other two parties conceded. And then they noticed that the woman had gone.

"Where'd she go?" asked Genta in surprise.

Conan shrugged. "She said good night," he conveyed to them.

Conan had been half hoping that they would instantly grow suspicious of the little old woman and begin a long discussion of who she could be, why she might live like this in the sewers, and what she might be trying to do. However, while the Detective Boys may have been quite bright, they were still only a group of seven-year-old adventure enthusiasts. It had been too much to hope for, Conan knew. Even so, he sighed to himself as he joined his little friends (albeit with some reluctance) in snuggling into the nice, warm quilts by the fire.

At first, Ayumi, Genta, and Mitsuhiko talked, discussing how exciting and strange this was, and how cool Conan's 'grandma' was (apparently Conan's introduction, "Guys, as you've probably realized, this isn't my grandmother. Meet the little old woman who lives in the sewers and knows everything. Little Old Woman Who Lives in the Sewers and Knows Everything, I'd introduce you to my friends, but I assume that you already know who they are." had been pretty useless), and how they might possibly evade the evil people that were after them. Conan only half listened. Actually listening would irritate him, he knew, as he had already explained to them since they had come down here that the old woman was _not _his grandmother, and knew that they still would not listen if he pointed out that she could easily be one of said 'evil people that were after them', and so it was not a good idea to sleep. No, they would just go to sleep anyway.

As he listened to his friends' breathing slowly calm to that of a sleeping person. He could feel the accursed child's body that was his begging for sleep: his eyelids drooped, all his limbs felt too heavy to be his own, his head ached with the effort to stay awake… He shook his head firmly every time he felt his guard falling. His _friends_ were _sleeping_. This was _unknown territory_. What kind of detective fell asleep in a situation like this? No matter how much time went by, he had to make sure nothing out of the ordinary happened; he had to guard them, to all intents and purposes. It wasn't like before, when he had been on his own. He had to stay awake, no matter the cost.

"Well, that's a silly thought."

Conan thought he jumped a foot into the air at the voice. He stared at the woman climbing back into the room with the lamp. For the first time, he noted that the fire had burned down to embers. He sat up to stare at the fire accusingly. How could this be? Had he dozed off? No, he couldn't have!

"No, you didn't doze off," the woman snapped. Conan recoiled—the frustration in her eyes was like the anger of a beast as it prepared to bite. But then her words distracted him. "You just spent four whole hours spending what little of your mental energy is left trying to stay awake when you could have gotten a good four hours' rest."

Conan stared at her. She always spoke as though she knew his thoughts. And, illogical though it was, he was beginning to think that she _did_ know his thoughts.

"Finally figured it out, have you?" asked the woman serenely. Yep, she definitely could read his thoughts. And the frustration from earlier was gone without a trace from her voice and face. Talk about mood swings—and she wasn't even young! "I would assure you that I'm perfectly harmless and you should go to sleep, but there's no time for that anymore. I'm sure that you're aware that your companion left you because he realized that his significant other was in danger by association?"

Conan stared blankly. Of course he knew. It actually shocked him that it had taken Kaito so long to realize it. He had always known that Ran was in danger by-

Conan's eyes widened. "Ran."

"Yes, well done. You got it at the first try. Impressive, I must say." Conan glared at the little old woman. Was she mocking him, or was she actually serious? He narrowed his eyes and stared. Yes, she was definitely mocking him. But, of course, now was not the time for that. "What do you know about Ran?"

The woman smiled in her irritatingly serene manner. "That she is currently with the girl whom your friend seeks. The two of them are perfectly safe, if rather misguided. In fact, the number of misguided people in this whole affair is quite shocking. And frustrating, I must say. Dear me, just thinking about it makes me need another cup of tea. The fire's died down and it's getting cold—perfect. I'll make it now."

Conan stared at the woman as she went over to the fireplace to add another log to it as she stirred up the fire. Did she just come to tell him that Ran was safe and misguided, among a whole bunch of other people? And she made it sound as if she knew everything.

"You know much more than you're telling me." Conan's accusation was blunt, but he didn't think that beating around the bush would work any better with this woman. Infuriating though she may be, Conan was well aware that she was probably at least twice as perceptive as he was (and that was _really_ saying something)—trying to subtly coax an answer out of her was more likely to incite her anger than anything. Or maybe she'd get even more frustrated and decide to pour the tea over him rather than drink it. He could just see her doing that with that irritating serenity still perfectly in tact in her expression.

By the look in her eyes as she glanced back at him, Conan had a sneaking suspicion that she knew _precisely_ what he had been thinking. "I know a great many things."

"And if you're helping me, you're obviously on my side," Conan said, though it was more a question than a statement.

"I suppose one could put it that way. Or one could say that _you_ are on _my_ side."

Conan paused. Then he shook his head. "That's irrelevant. What I'm saying is that we're on the same side, right?"

"Naturally, dear."

"And you know much, much more than you tell me. I'll bet you know everything about the Organization."

"Oh no, I wouldn't presume such a thing. No human can know everything about anything. I'm sure that you're old enough to understand that."

"But you know more about the Organization than I do."

"Perhaps."

"Then tell me what you know! I can use it to bring them down!"

The old woman turned from the fire to look at him. Her eyes and face were weary and tired, and this, coupled with the firelight illuminating her face from the side, made her look older than ever. "There is much that you don't understand, child," she said quietly, shaking her head. "I know perfectly well what would happen if I told you all I know. You would go galloping off into danger, get yourself caught, reveal how much you know, and then reveal that I gave you the information. No. There are some things that you must find out on your own."

"Don't get all moralistic! Who _cares_ how I got the information? I need it, and you know that!"

"'Need'?" repeated the old woman with one of her maniacal cackles of laughter. Conan shuddered. How could she be snappish one moment, serene the next, and then cackle maniacally a moment later? He definitely did not enjoy being in this woman's company, he reflected as she spoke. "No, you do not. The knowledge and warnings that are absolutely _necessary_ for you to know, I give to you. I have already warned you of a great many things. I believe that you will find that trouble generally ensued when you did not heed my warnings."

"Yeah, you mentioned something about not being able to tell me how you know stuff last time, too."

"But that's easy," the woman pointed out. "I simply pay attention—that's all I need to gather information." She had to be hiding something. That couldn't be true. Anyone could pay attention, but how would attention gain her the knowledge of the top-secret Organization as well as countless secret identities, including his own. Still, he wasn't going to push.

"Right now," the woman said, facing him with a finger pointed firmly at his chest, "You're going to learn exactly what you have to do if you want your pretty girl, who is safe at the moment, to stay that way."

Conan stared at her as if she had lost her mind. The little old woman smiled serenely before she launched into a description that Conan found to be far more maniacal than any of her cackles of laughter.

VVVVVVVVVV

Jodie sighed and ran a hand through her short hair. She had driven Ran and Aoko to the Professor's house and dropped them off there. Honestly, she would have been more than willing to help them—if it hadn't been for a few…recent developments.

Naturally, she was well aware that a few of their own were spying in the Organization. But when it had come to light that one of her colleagues had been an undercover member of the Organization… The very thought still made her shudder, even if the man in question was now in a top security jail in the United States.

It had been that incident that had alerted her to the fact that she could not trust blindly. Not even people working with her to bring down the Organization. Certainly, there were many trying to bring it down. Conan and his friends for one; the FBI, of course; and the Japanese police force was valiantly working with what information they could acquire—although, for some reason, the amount of information that they had been acquiring recently was suspiciously explosive. She would have to investigate that: she had no doubt that the Organization had more than a few members in the Japanese police force. Naturally, the FBI had some spies there as well, but no more than one or two. They couldn't possibly monitor everything if the Organization started learning far too much about the plans to bring them down.

Jodie sighed again and rested her forehead against the steering wheel. What was she supposed to do? She couldn't give Miss Mouri any information for fear that it should fall into the wrong hands. While she trusted Miss Mouri, naturally, she wasn't so sure about that girl that was with her. She had never met Nakamori Aoko, after all. And what about the Professor and that strange girl whom they called Haibara Ai? There was no doubt that Miss Haibara knew far more than she let on. In fact, Jodie was quite sure that she knew far more than Conan himself, which was quite impressive.

Jodie's eyes sharpened as she raised her head and stepped on the accelerator as the light turned green. Yes, Miss Haibara was definitely on the top of her list of suspicious persons that needed background investigation. Of course, Conan was perfectly trusting of her. They were friends, and there was no doubt that Conan was set against the Organization. So why did he, who so strongly asserted that Miss Haibara was an ally, insist on holding so much information from the girl? This had only been the first warning sign. After that, upon closer observation, Jodie had noticed that Miss Haibara herself was cryptic and reluctant when it came to the Organization.

Honestly, the first conclusion she had come to was that Miss Haibara, a victim of the Organization as she herself had been, was frightened out of her mind and therefore refused to disclose the information that the Organization so feared her disclosing.

As time had passed, however, Jodie had begun to realize that that wasn't quite right. Miss Haibara occasionally _did_ disclose information. And it was, honestly, quite shocking to see the sorts of things she knew. They were small things, trivial and insignificant; things that no victim could ever possibly know. Unless she had been chained up and left with them for days, but that wasn't quite the Organization's way. Not unless she'd had some information that they needed, and even then they tended to resort to blackmail and threats rather than chains.

It was when Jodie had heard Conan confirm with Miss Haibara, on one occasion, that Gin was left-handed that the reality had struck her with utmost certainty. Miss Haibara knew exactly how the Organization functioned; she knew the individual people and their ways; she knew, though she never disclosed it, what the Organization truly wanted.

There was only one way that she could have known it so well: she herself had once been a member of the Organization.

But what would the Organization want with a little girl like Miss Haibara? For that matter, why were they after Conan? Then again, Conan was obviously a prodigy. Perhaps the same thing could be said for Miss Haibara. If Conan's prodigy lay in observation and logical reasoning, perhaps Miss Haibara's lay in something that the Organization would have found useful.

Just as her mind was beginning to run off with speculation of this, Jodie calmed her mind. She could not allow herself to forge that there were also other possibilities: like if Miss Haibara had had a family member in the Organization, for example. Jodie remembered hearing a mention of an elder sister who had been killed, most probably by the Organization. What if that sister had been working for the Organization, and had let slip a great deal of information to the little sister whom she had considered harmless? That would fit…

And yet it was not quite right. There were too many things that Miss Haibara knew. Could that all have really come from mere association with one in the Organization? Somehow, Jodie doubted that the Organization would allow their members to bring family members to 'work'. The very thought was decidedly strange, and almost inconceivable. They were a top-secret group, determined not to let any information leak. Hence, it would figure that they wouldn't dare let anyone know anything more than was absolutely necessary.

There was always the possibility that they had taken Miss Haibara captive to strengthen their grip over her uncertain sister…which still would not account for the amount of insight that Miss Haibara had into the Organization and its ways. It also failed to account for the name by which they called her: 'Sherry'. Was that her code name from when she had been one of them, or the code name that they had given her to identify her as a target?

Jodie almost missed the corner she needed to turn and was momentarily distracted as she quickly swerved into the street, earning quite a bit of annoyed honking from the cars that she had cut off. She heard someone shout at her to put on the blinker, but just waved a hand apologetically outside the window. Once she was steadily driving down the road again, she resumed her consideration.

If Miss Haibara actually _had_ been a part of the Organization, then she must have gotten cold feet at some point—or perhaps she had come to realize exactly what she was doing. Of course that 'what' was still shrouded in mystery, thanks to Miss Haibara's reluctance to reveal anymore than absolutely necessary.

Either way, Conan knew her background—Jodie was sure of this, because if she had not told him that he was sure to be more than a little mistrustful of her—and was ready to trust her with his life. So whatever she had been, whatever had happened, she was definitely set against the Organization now.

However, the fact that Conan was reluctant to disclose information to the girl made Jodie more than a little uneasy. She had a feeling that this had to do with the girl's self-destructive tendencies—she could remember the girl deliberately staying in the bus when everyone else ran out, even as she knew that there were bombs in the bus due to explode in mere seconds. These self-destructive tendencies were another source of uneasiness.

Whatever the case was with Miss Haibara, Jodie agreed with her boss that it was best to keep as much information from that group as possible until they knew more.

She parked along the curb and stepped out of the car with her shoulder bag in one hand. After she locked the car door, she put the strap of the bag properly over her shoulder, brushed off her clothing, and began to make her way down the street.

Reaching the door of the house that was her destination, she double-checked the address once before ringing the bell. She waited for some time, and then the door opened to reveal an elegant-looking woman in a kimono. Jodie almost raised an eyebrow—kimonos nowadays were only worn on a regular basis by particularly traditional, rich families as well as old woman, but this lady fell into neither category—but schooled her expression to one of calm respect.

"Good evening," Jodie greeted. "I believe that you are Akisawa-san…?"

"Yes," replied the lady. Her expression said nothing, but something about her demeanor let Jodie know that she expected an introduction from this strange, foreign visitor as well.

"I believe that it is your husband who is expecting me—my name is Starling." She added a bow to her introduction. Though, being foreign, she generally did not follow through with such things, it seemed to her that this traditional-seeming lady would appreciate a gesture of appreciation of tradition and culture, however small it may be.

Sure enough, a small, graceful smile was on the Akisawa-san's face when Jodie looked up from her small bow. "Ah yes, Starling-san. Please, come in."

She entered, murmuring her gratitude and a respectful '_ojamashimasu_' (1) as she removed her shoes and stepped up from the entrance. Again, this was a tradition that she generally ignored (when one was a foreigner in Japan, she had found, there were many things expected of the Japanese that were not expected of one), but Akisawa-san's traditional elegance seemed to demand that she follow the native traditions for once.

Nojima-san led her into a room with a straw floor and a low table at the center, surrounded by one cushion on each side. "Please wait here—I shall go and call my husband."

Of course, a lady so traditional would never shout for her husband, Jodie reflected with a wry smile.

When her colleague entered the room, Jodie smiled at the male Akisawa-san: a good-looking but not-so-traditional man with an easy-going nature, who smiled back with boundless friendliness.

"So, how have your investigations gone?" asked Akisawa-san, seating himself casually on one of the cushions and gesturing that she do the same. Jodie sat across from him as she removed her shoulder bag and lay it on the table.

"Quite well, actually," Jodie replied. "In fact, just today I met Mouri-san—it seems that she is under the impression that the FBI is after her. She had quite a shock, you know. Some people came calling so early in the morning that it wasn't even anywhere near dawn, and told her that Conan-kun and Haibara-san are in league with the Organization. She's been on the run since then, since apparently the people intended to capture her. I'm quite sure that it was the Organization trying to use her to get at Conan-kun and Haibara-san, and using the FBI as a cover-up. But she was quite shaken."

Akisawa looked thoughtful. "Did she mention any names?"

Jodie raised an eyebrow. "No, of course not. Any names they might have given her were probably false, anyway. No one would give their real name in a situation like that." Akisawa's eyes darted to the left once, and he had an odd expression—probably thoughtfulness. And was it just her imagination, or were his cheeks tinged slightly pink? Jodie shook the thought from her mind.

"You gave any information to Mouri-san?"

"Of course not. The damage that can be done by mere information is horrible, as we learned the hard way recently. I gathered information, but the information that I could disclose in return was sadly sparse. I left her with a friend before I came here."

"Who is this friend?" Akisawa asked, his eyes sharpening as they snapped to look at her.

"I'm afraid that I'm not going to disclose that to you," Jodie replied with a raised eyebrow. Was it her imagination, or was Akisawa acting a little bit odd? "Like I said, the less information known, the more chance of success."

"Of course, of course."

"Now, moving on to the issue of the Headquarters. You must know that we've been narrowing our sights down to one certain area in the city. But today there was a fire—in one of the few buildings that we'd concluded was most likely to be Headquarters. I'm starting to suspect that we've got another spy in our midst, and as soon as we got too close…"

_(1) ojamashimasu – an expression meaning literally 'I will be a bother', spoken when one enters another's home._

_**Author's Notes**__: Late again. Will I never learn to update properly? All evidence so far states that no, I definitely won't. And I probably should stop saving review replies till I'm finished writing the next chapter. But I'm amazed at the number of reviews I've received after the last chapter! I've thanked you all in the replies, but again—thanks so much for the reviews! I adore you all for sending me them. When I have a writer's block, I go pour over them, and then suddenly I'm full of ideas._

_As you'll know if you read my profile, part of the reason why this chapter is late is because of another chapter that I wrote. I intended that to be chapter ten…and then as soon as I finished, I realized that I needed another chapter before I could post that one. Hence, the next chapter's all written. It just needs to be refined._


	12. Interludes of Peril: Tokyo

**Perilous Danger**

**Chapter 11: Interludes of Peril – Tokyo**

Professor Agasa Hiroshi came home to find the girl whom he thought of as something of an adoptive daughter pacing the room restlessly. When she saw him enter, her head snapped up and she looked at him with eyes whose calm was broken by the slightest tint of panic—rare for her, to say the very least.

"Professor, we've got to go find Kudo-kun. Now!"

The Professor stared down at the girl blankly. The only thing that his mind registered was that this had something to do with Shinichi-kun. Which figured, since he was pretty sure that Shinichi-kun was the only one capable of making Ai-kun lose her cool.

"Ai-kun? What's the matter?"

"It's Kudo-kun—the organization contacted Detective Mouri through Vermouth, and you know what that means."

"That Ran-kun is in danger?"

"No! Well, yes, but that's what'll be Kudo-kun's first thought, which means that we can count on the fact that he's going to leap out of home and do something rash."

"Do you think-"

"That he'll come here?" Ai snorted. "No. Absolutely not. He acts like I have the Plague when he gets clues about the Organization, and I sincerely doubt that that's about to change anytime soon."

"But what-"

"Can we do? We can go find him and stop him before he gets himself killed."

"Wait, wait…" said the Professor soothingly. "Calm down, Ai-kun. All the blood's rushed into your head. Think about it a moment. We don't even know for sure whether Shinichi-kun left the agency"-Ai snorted to indicate that she thought that they didn't _need_ any confirmation to know that he had leapt head first into danger-"and even if we did, where do we look?"

Ai thought a moment. Then, "He'd probably make it look like he was coming here, so he'd start that way, right? Why don't we drive up a little down the street from the agency and wait there?"

The Professor sighed, but shrugged anyway.

"If that's what you think is best, Ai-kun…"

Which was why, five minutes later, they were sitting in the car drumming their fingers as they stared at the sidewalk.

It was another five minutes later when, a moment after they had spotted Conan some way down the street, a trunk fell right at him. He leapt out of the way, and after a glance upward, ran straight into the building—no doubt to investigate.

"That _moron!_" Ai hissed through her teeth as she slammed open the door and darted across and down the street.

"Ai-kun!"

But the Professor's shout met deaf ears. Sighing to himself, Professor Agasa started the car again to drive around to the other side of the building. He knew that with the commotion of all the people who had heard the thump and crack of the falling trunk, the normally lax employees would be keeping a close eye on that staircase that everyone used but was, in fact, (supposedly strictly) residents-only.

And he was right.

"Sorry, kid, but this path's for residents only," an amused-looking young man working in the shop told Ai as she attempted to make her way to the stairs. There was a steel-like seriousness beneath that amusement on his face, but Ai didn't exactly care very much.

"A trunk almost fell on my friend!" she snapped at him. "He's going up there—it could be dangerous! I have to stop him!"

"Now, now. You're taking all this way too seriously. Probably too much TV. I'm sure the trunk just fell by accident."

"_Accident!_ It made _cracks_ in the _sidewalk_. That was no accident! Let me through!"

"No. Kid, it's late. Go home." That tone really left no room for argument. So, with a ferocious glare at the shopkeeper that should have left him as a sizzling pile of ashes brutally shoved ten feet under, Ai dashed back out of the shop. She sighed with relief to note that the Professor's car was gone—he had probably tried going around the other way, aware that the shopkeepers would not let anyone through that particular staircase. Maybe he would reach on time.

But when she was only halfway there around the oh-so-inconveniently large block, she caught sight of a bright yellow car in the distance—the Professor's. It had stalled, and by the time the Professor got it to work again and they drove up to the back of the building, there was nothing to be found.

Ai went up one staircase to the roof and then down the other one, but all was silent and there was no sign of Conan. She halted in shock when she stepped outside, however.

Though she had failed to notice before, there were black skid marks all over the parking lot, and a lingering smell of burnt rubber. It was faint, but she was certain of it.

"Ai-kun, there's nothing here," the Professor tried to convince her. "We can't do-"

"There _is_ something here," Ai said quietly, walking through the parking lot to inspect the locations of the skid marks. "These are all fresh. Someone was driving crazily around the parking lot, and they didn't have a set destination."

Then she glanced at the bicycles. She gave a wry smile.

"There's your proof. Those bicycles were crushed at once—can you tell by the way they're all fallen the same way like dominoes, and the way their dents and the other damage is all similar? This driver had a target—a person—that was trying to evade him. And they've only just left. But since there aren't any dead bodies or spots of blood, I think it's safe to assume that Kudo-kun either got away or, more likely, was kidnapped."

The Professor looked around in alarm as though he expected one of the cars to suddenly come at him.

Then Ai's words registered.

"Him? You don't think it was Chris Vinyard, then?"

Ai snorted and gestured to their surroundings.

"This is all far too blunt and tactless to be Vermouth's doing. It could be one of her subordinates, I suppose, but I somehow doubt that—I don't think Vermouth would choose such tactless people as subordinates. I think we've got more on our hands than we bargained for."

"So…what do we do now?" asked the Professor.

"We go after them."

"But we'd need to track him somehow—if they went that way"-the Professor pointed to the road-"they probably went into the woods, right? But those woods are so large, we could never find him without some sort of tracking device!"

"He had his glasses, didn't he?" smiled Ai. "And I have the other pair." She pulled out the other pair with a sly smirk. The Professor could only shake his head, but as he turned away, he couldn't resist a smile of his own, either.

So they go back onto the road. They were fifteen minutes on the road when Ai gave a wordless exclamation of shock.

"Ai-kun?" asked the Professor, swerving as he jumped from the sudden breaking of silence.

"The tracker point just vanished," Ai said quietly, eyes wide as she removed the glasses to stare at them. She pressed the tracking button again, turning it off and on again, but the point would not appear again.

"Do you think that he doesn't want anyone finding him?" the Professor asked quietly.

Ai shrugged.

"Who knows?" she said with a sigh. "Maybe it was him, or maybe someone else came along and…wait. Doesn't he always wear those tracking things on his button?"

The Professor shook his head.

"You won't be able to track those with these glasses. I set them up so each pair of glasses has a different set of tracking devices. That way if Shinichi-kun is using one pair and meanwhile the other pair falls into the wrong hands, they won't know what he's tracking."

"I suppose that I'm the 'wrong hands', am I?" Ai muttered, rolling her eyes. But then she noted that the Professor's eyes were widening in horror. "Professor? What's the matter?"

"I forgot to tell him that I'd made that upgrade when I gave him the new glasses and trackers," the Professor said, shaking his head at himself. Of _all_ the times to forget to tell Shinichi-kun something, and of _all_ the things to forget to tell him… Mistakes like this could quite easily be the factor that ended up determining the difference between Shinichi-kun's life and death. His brow was furrowed, and for the first time since Ai had met him, he honestly looked like a world-weary old man.

"You mean he wasn't the one who asked for the upgrade?" asked Ai.

"Oh no, he did. It was just that when I gave him the new glasses and trackers, I was busy with something else, and forgot to say anything…"

"And knowing him and his lack of faith in your inventions, he probably thought you were still working on his request," said Ai, her voice dripping with irony. "I bet he didn't even realize that an upgrade like that is so simple that _I_ could have done it—though reversing the thing's much harder, and I bet even _you_ can't do it either without those glasses with you." The Professor did not reply, but Ai could tell by his expression that she was correct. "So he could be counting on us to follow the trackers that we can't follow. Wonderful. So what do you think? Should we just keep driving around in the hope that we find him somewhere on the roads?"

"I suppose that would be best," the Professor said guiltily, and they set off again.

They drove in silence. The Professor kept his eyes on the road ahead, and Ai at the woods on her side, but neither was very hopeful. There were forks in the road—not many, but they were still there—which significantly lowered the probability that they would find Conan, even if he _was_ on a road.

"Professor?" Ai suddenly asked, turning her eyes away from her window. "How likely is it that Kudo-kun has a cell phone with him?"

The Professor glanced over at Ai in surprise.

"Quite likely," he replied slowly. "He kept them both in his pocket most of the time, at least. But I forgot to bring my phone…"

"I brought mine, so that's no problem," said Ai as she pulled hers out of her pocket. She scrolled down her short directory and selected his number.

The phone on the other end rang; however, no one picked up. When the rings gave way to the default answering machine, Ai hung up in annoyance.

"How convenient. He forgets his phone on the very day that it could have been useful."

"He forgot it?" The Professor was surprised. "But I thought he only ever leaves the Kudo Shinichi phone behind."

"Yes, that's the one I have."

The Professor's eyebrows shot up and he glanced over at Ai.

"I called him Kudo-kun on the phone once when she was nearby. He apparently went through quite some trouble convincing her that it was just a number mix-up, but after that he said that if I was going to call him Kudo-kun on the phone, then I should dial Kudo Shinichi's number."

"She…as in Ran-kun?"

"Who else?"

The Professor opted not to comment on her apparent reluctance to use Ran's name. Or maybe he was just so used to it that he did not even notice. Ai had never used Ran's name once, after all. He pulled over, parking on the side of the road.

"I'll try," he told her. "I know Edogawa Conan's number."

"No wonder," said Ai as she handed him her cell phone, thinking of the Professor's lack of updated technology in the areas where it mattered—the usage of address books on the cell phone, for example.

hr 

When Mouri Kogoro awoke that morning to find the apartment door unlocked, the office with a door open and a window unlocked, and his daughter gone, he did what any decent father would do—he panicked.

After he spent some time in a panicked flurry, he forced himself to calm down and turned his mind to 'detective mode'.

The apartment door was open because she had left the apartment; the office door was open because she had entered and left the office. But why would she enter the office? And where did the window factor in? The nights were cold, so no ordinary person would open the window simply to 'get some fresh air'. He had once seen his daughter jump down from that very window out onto the sidewalk, but at the time, it was urgent (or so they thought) to get out onto the street as quickly as possible.

Why would Ran have an urgent reason to suddenly leave the office through the window, a route that required jumping down a full storey, in the middle of the night?

Kogoro furrowed his brow in thought.

Well…if she had, indeed, jumped out the window, rather than got a strange, spontaneous urge for some (cold) fresh air in the middle of the night, then there were only two reasons that he could think of why she would consider the matter so urgent.

One was that she had seen something outside the window…like maybe that Kudo boy that had been missing for so long?

Kogoro shuddered at the thought. Heaven forbid that boy that called himself a detective should ever go near his daughter again. He wasn't blind—he had noticed the way that Ran grew more and more depressed as the boy refused to return. Actually, if Conan hadn't been there, she probably would have already been sunken into the dark, gloomy depths of depression. Well, there was one reason to keep that annoying, nosy little child around, then.

And then he remembered the previous night with a jolt. What _was_ the kid hiding?

But he was getting distracted. Conan was safe with Professor Agasa. It was Ran he had to worry about right now.

The other possibility, much less likely, was that someone had been in the office with her, and had suddenly given her some reason to run away.

But really, who would try to visit a detective agency in the middle of the night? And why would Ran lead them into the office without waking him?

The entire idea was absurd!

That meant that she had seen something outside the window.

But what?

Kogoro walked to the window and looked out, mulling over the possibilities. It wasn't so difficult to come up with a reason why Ran would go to the office in the middle of the night. Dinner had been fairly traumatic, and for a kind, softhearted person like Ran, sleep had no doubt been slow in coming. Perhaps she had decided to come down to read a book or drink a mug of hot milk. And-

What was happening out there? Why were there so many people out on the street, and why were they all running in the same direction? And did they look…excited?

Kogoro snatched up his coat and ran out of the office and down the stairs. Maybe it had something to do with Ran…

"Hey, what's going on?" he addressed the master of Poirot as he fell in step beside him as they hurried down the street.

"I don't know," the master replied excitedly. "But I hear there's been some sort of attempted murder right up the street! They say that someone tried to drop a brick onto someone from above, and that the miss was really narrow…"

Kogoro panicked. Ran! He ran as fast as he could, shoving his way through the crowds, thinking of nothing other than that someone might have tried to murder his daughter. What had she ever done to hurt anyone? Why would anyone want to kill her?

He blamed himself. After all, he was the only reason that Ran could have been kidnapped, right? She herself had never done anything wrong, so no doubt someone had kidnapped her to get back at him.

Then he paused.

Or could it be that Kudo kid? But he had been gone for so long…

Or maybe Conan? But really, what had that kid done? When he came back, Kogoro would not let him into the house again until he explained what that letter had been about.

But Ran hadn't had any real contact with Kudo for over half a year, and Conan couldn't be involved in anything that was so…well, on such a large scale. He was only a kid, after all.

Which left him. Kogoro winced at the thought.

There was a plastic strip extending from cone to cone, cutting off the area of the incident. Kogoro paid it no heed and leapt right over it.

"I'm sorry, sir, but only members of the headquarters are-"

"I don't care what you police say! My daughter is in trouble, and I'll get her out of it if it's-"

"Detective Mouri?"

Kogoro spun around in surprise to see Inspector Shiratori standing behind him.

"Inspector Shiratori!" Kogoro exclaimed in relief. "I can't tell you how glad I am to see you here! Ran-"

"Has disappeared. Yes, I know—I was meaning to go and talk to you about that very matter."

Kogoro's face paled.

"The brick…it didn't hurt her, did it? I'd heard that it missed."

Shiratori raised his eyebrows in surprise.

"Brick? I'm sorry—I haven't the faintest idea what you mean."

"The brick!" Kogoro almost shouted. It took all his self-control to keep himself from leaping forward and grabbing the man by the scruff of the neck. "I heard that a brick was dropped in an attempted murder on someone walking by!"

"Ah." Shiratori's face relaxed. "You need not worry, Detective Mouri. We have it on good authority that it was a young child, not a teenaged girl, on whom the trunk was dropped."

"Trunk?"

"Yes. The version of a 'brick' falling is not very far from the truth, however—the trunk was filled with bricks. An obvious attempted murder. But the child ran away as soon as it happened—out of fright, no doubt—and the culprit vanished upon seeing the failure as well, so I am afraid that we have no idea whether this was personal or random."

Kogoro was so relieved that he felt his knees beginning to tremble. But that would not do before a man like Shiratori. He straightened his back and sent strength into his knees, determined to act professional.

"Thank you for putting my mind to rest," Kogoro thanked Shiratori, bowing his head formally. Then he looked up, and his eyes sharpened. "But you mentioned something about my daughter?"

"Ah yes," Shiratori nodded. "Please, come to my car—I will take you to a more…private location. The matter of which I am about to speak is very confidential. I trust you do not mind?"

"No, no," Kogoro hastily shook his head. "That's fine with me."

hr 

"Kisaki-san?"

"Yes, Kuriyama-san? I just got in—is it urgent?"

"Well, there's a call on your private line…should I take it?"

Her private line? Only Ran and that imbecile of a husband of hers used that one. It was probably Ran—Kogoro only called when he was in trouble, and how in the world could he be in trouble at this time of morning? It could only be Ran, but why would _she_ call at a time like this?

"Don't worry, Kuriyama-san—I'll take it."

Kisaki Eri was already lifting the receiver as she spoke.

"Hello?"

"A… Auntie?"

Eri started. Where had Sonoko gotten her number? No—more importantly, why was Ran's best friend calling her and, worse, sounding as though she were about to cry?

"Yes? Sonoko-chan, isn't it?"

"Yes, Auntie… I- I'm really sorry for calling your private line at this time in the morning—I mean, I'm sure you're very busy and all—but…" A sniffle. "I was just wondering…have you heard from Ran since yesterday?"

Eri raised an eyebrow.

"No, actually—I talked to her yesterday morning, but not since then. Is something the matter?"

"Well…Ran…Ran's gone."

"Gone?"

"Yes, I mean, she's not at home, her cell phone's busy, Uncle's not here, the office door's unlocked and a window's wide open even though it's cold… Auntie, has something happened to them?"

Eri resisted the urge to roll her eyes, relaxing. She held the receiver between her shoulder and cheek and reached out to the pile of documents in front of her and opened to the first page of the topmost one.

"I'm sure that they just went out somewhere. Maybe that man suddenly started craving some food that wasn't in the fridge, and Ran ran off shopping while he wandered off somewhere. It isn't all that uncommon, you know. Or Ran might have gone on a walk, and he wandered off while she was gone… You know what a drunk that man can be."

But to her surprise, she heard a suppressed sob at the other end of the line. The document lying open on the desk before her was instantly forgotten as her attention focused on Sonoko.

"Yes, I know. I mean, that's what I thought too, at first. But then I thought I'd wait to see if Ran would come home, so I was just standing there in front of the stairs… And then this man came up to me and asked if I was acquainted with Mouri Ran. I said, yes, of course, and then he asked me if I knew where she was. I told him that she wasn't home right now, but she was sure to come back soon. He sighed and gave me this strange look, and then walked away. I was sort of…well, curious, so I watched him. He slipped into this alleyway, and I wondered, 'What's he going to do in there?' so I snuck up to the alley, and…"

Eri waited with forced patients as she listened to the other girl tremble and breathe heavily on the other end of the line.

"Oh, Auntie—they're trying to find Ran and Uncle, and it doesn't sound like they have good intentions at all!" Eri felt herself go cold. Who was 'they'? And why would 'they' want her husband and daughter? But she bit her lip to keep herself quiet as Sonoko went on. "And…and Auntie—they saw me."

"What?" Eri almost snapped.

"They…they saw me, and I ran…and I'm hiding…"

"Where are you?" The question was sharp and demanded an immediate answer. Though Sonoko could not see, Eri was already rising from her desk.

"I…I'm not sure, really. I'm in one of those big public garbage bins…it's on one of the small streets in the area, but I'm not sure which one, and I don't feel much like poking my head out. I'm scared…"

"Don't get out unless you hear my voice calling you," Eri told her sharply. "Stay there, don't move, and just be quiet. I'm coming to get you."

Eri heard Sonoko give her mumbled agreement. She did not ask why the girl had called her rather than her own mother, father, or sister. She did not ask what, exactly, she had heard. Such questions could wait until later. She did not even ask who 'they' were. Eri was as logical as anyone could be—and coolheaded, which had been the thing to earn her the nickname, Queen of the Court. Even if Ran was in trouble, Sonoko obviously had no idea where she was, and there was nothing she could do. For now, she had to help Sonoko; finding Ran came after that.

"Cancel everything I have for the rest of the day, Kuriyama-san," Eri said, grabbing her coat and purse and moving quickly towards the door. "I doubt that I'll be back today."

"But Kisaki-san-"

The door was already closed, and the famous lawyer's secretary could hear said lawyer—whose reputation deemed her to be always calm and collected—striding down the hallway more rapidly than she had ever heard her walk before.

hr 

One of Sonoko's favorite pastimes was reading romance novels. There was a bookcase in her room brimming with romance novels. And she had a secret stash of more inappropriate ones in a pile by the wall under her bed.

This was a situation not uncommon in many of those stories—where the heroine stumbled upon something that she should not have or found herself on the receiving end of a dangerous identity's menace for no reason that she could comprehend. In some stories, the heroine managed to get herself out of trouble. More often than that was the instance where she made a valiant attempt to contact her knight in shining armor, and whether he received her message or not, he knew that something was wrong and rushed to her rescue.

A few years ago, she had swooned while reading such stories. In more recent years, she had come to look upon such heroines with scorn. So she just sat there waiting? How lazy of her! If her knight in shining armor could get in so easily, then surely she could get out just as easily? The other heroine, the kind that 'summoned up the courage that swept through her with one thought of her lover' and made her own way through was much more appealing. Sonoko had been on the receiving end of a number of death threats, and her knight in shining armor _had_ saved her a number of times while the other times she had made her way through with the help of her friends—mostly Ran. So, though she had never been in either precise situation—sitting and waiting or fighting through something all alone—she figured that she understood such heroines just fine.

How wrong she had been. Sonoko now looked back on herself as she had been with scorn.

She had never realized how difficult it was to just _stay quiet_ and _wait_ when one knew one was in mortal danger. She was actually shaking with the effort not to leap up or cry or scream. And so she thought about making a run for it, but the thought of what could happen if she got caught turned her legs to jelly. Looking back on what the heroines in her novels had done in such situations, Sonoko thought of Makoto, hoping to draw out the exhilaration that she always felt at the thought or sight of him.

But it was nothing even _resembling_ the courage described in books that swept through her.

Suddenly, a sob that she had not seen coming broke out from her throat. Sonoko nearly suffocated herself as she pressed her hands against her nose and mouth as tightly as she could to hold in the sobs that followed one after the other endlessly. But all she could think about was that if she didn't get through this, she would never see Makoto-san again and he would never know what had happened to her.

Her trembles grew even more violent, and her sobs grew more audible. She pressed her hands against her nose and mouth even harder, and felt her lungs begin to burn for need of air. But she didn't dare relax her hands—what if someone heard?

She could not have stood even if she had put all her strength into the effort. With one thought of Makoto, all such strength remaining had left her.

And then suddenly there was a rustling above her head and she had to blink a few times to adjust her eyes to the light.

Sonoko looked up.

It was a pair of thugs that was grinning down at her—a young man with spiked purple hair, and another with long brown hair in a ponytail. The grins on their faces frightened her to no end.

With one last, desperate thought of the heroines in her books, she tried leaping up and over the side of the garbage bin and running, carefully not thinking of Makoto or how she was probably helpless to get away.

She was not particularly surprised when the thugs began to laugh and caught her arm before she had taken two steps away from the garbage bin, but that didn't stop the bitterness that swept through her.

"What have we here?" purred the brown-haired thug. "A lost kitten, it seems."

"An Aristocat if I ever saw one," snickered the one with spiked hair. Then he glanced nervously around. "If Kasumi comes back…"

"She won't," snorted the first. "Not in the near future, at least."

The second one didn't look so sure.

"Oh, come on," the first one snapped irritably. "We need the money, right? And we've tried getting it honestly, but it didn't work. There're some sacrifices you've got to make in life!"

Sonoko felt her skin go cold. Were they going to ransom her? It certainly sounded like it. She prayed that the spike-haired man, obviously having second thoughts, would stop his friend.

"Fine," sighed the second one, and Sonoko's heart dropped into the bottom of her stomach. "But let's get out of here before anyone sees us."

It was not five seconds after they had started dragging her and she had started screaming that her cell phone rang.

hr 

Makoto had often had 'bad feelings' about Sonoko. They were not always 'bad feelings' of the same kind: sometimes it was his lungs constricting and heart twisting in the fear that she would die or be gravely harmed (or harmed at all, for that matter); sometimes it was his heart dropping to the floor and wrenching with pain because he thought that she loved another.

But the kind of 'bad feeling' that he had now was not like any other that he had had before. It was a rather early hour of the morning—it would be early _wake-able _morning for Sonoko—and it was all he could do to restrain himself from calling and making sure that she was all right.

In the past, the 'bad feelings' had always come with some sort of information—a man pulling a knife on Sonoko or Sonoko telling him that she was making chocolate for her romantic interest, for example.

There was no information involved in this case. He had simply woken up in the middle of the night, unable to recall what he had been dreaming, but somehow positive that Sonoko was in trouble.

So he sat on his bed, glaring at his cell phone and trying to decide whether or not to call.

He imagined what the call would be like:

"Hello?" Sonoko would answer, voice groggy with sleep.

"Er, yes, Sonoko-san?" he would reply, suddenly feeling a little ridiculous.

"Makoto-san?" she would ask, waking up a little in surprise. "Is something wrong? We just talked yesterday!"

"Actually," he would say, determined to hide the blush that spreading over his neck from his voice. "I was just wondering—are you all right? Is anything wrong?"

There would be a pause of surprise, and then she would giggle.

"At this hour in the morning?" she would ask. "Of course not! Why?"

"Well…" he would mutter, feeling rather foolish, "I woke up in the middle of the night, and I had a bad feeling about you, so I just thought I'd check…"

And then Sonoko would laugh.

"It was probably just a dream, Makoto-san," she would tell him, but delight would fill her voice at the knowledge that he thought about her. "Nothing's wrong."

And then she would start one of their conversations that would last until midnight.

Makoto frowned.

It was all well and good if things turned out that way…but who was to say that they would?

He took a deep breath and dialed.

When she did not pick up immediately as she usually did, he breathed a sigh of relief. She was probably asleep, just as she ought to be—but it wouldn't hurt to check.

Then the rings stopped. He opened his mouth to apologize to Sonoko for the early call…and stopped short when a man's voice entered his ear from the phone.

"Who is this?" the man said. Makoto did not like his tone. Not at all. What was this man doing with Sonoko's phone?

"Who is _this_?" growled Makoto, being careful to sound menacing. "Where is So- my girlfriend?" At the last moment, it struck him that there was a chance that someone had stolen her purse, phone and all, in which case it might not be wise to give names. Wasn't her father rich or something? That would make it all the worse if he gave her name and it happened to be recognized.

"Ah, so you're the chick's boyfriend, are you?" The man sounded pleased.

Makoto heard a familiar voice scream his name in the background, and his heart stopped. What was this man doing to Sonoko?

"Yes," he said in a quiet voice that barely concealed his fury. His hand squeezed the phone, taking out all his anger on it even as he leapt up to grab a few essentials, which he stuffed into a small bag. "If you've hurt her, I'll make you regret it."

"Don't worry," the man replied. "We just want money. Meet us in the alley behind the Ginza tonight at eleven PM with no less than five hundred thousand yen if you want to see this girl again."

And then the line went dead. But that didn't bother Makoto—he stuffed the phone into the bag with his car keys, wallet and passport. Then he began to run down the hall.

"Makoto?" called his dorm mate. "What are you doing up? It's the middle of the night!"

"Tell the coach I won't be available for the tournament tomorrow," Makoto said shortly. He ran outside to his car and hopped in, silently applauding his decision to get a license. He drove to the airport as fast as he could, not caring how many driving laws he broke just so long as he got to Japan on time.

The five hundred thousand yen never even entered his mind.

hr 

"How dare you!" Sonoko snapped at the man with dyed brown hair as he snapped her cell phone shut, a pleased smile on his face. She struggled against the other man as he held her arms locked firmly behind her. "I don't know why you're so desperate for money, but whatever it is, it can't be very decent!"

The man glared at her.

"You don't know anything."

"I know that you just threatened my boyfriend into coming to pay you money he doesn't have!"

"I never threatened your boyfriend!"

"You said 'if you want to see this girl again'. That sounds like a threat to me!"

"Look, lady," said the ponytail man, stepping up to Sonoko to glare at her. "You have no idea what my friends and I have been through and I have no idea what kind of life you've lived, but judging from your clothing"-he looked her up and down, and Sonoko felt a twinge of guilt to note that she was wearing simple-but-nevertheless-expensive designer clothes that day-"I'd say that you've got something of an ideal life. Parents and money: probably. Education and good friends: yep. Nice, caring boyfriend: obviously."

"And what do you intend to do when my boyfriend comes and has nowhere near five hundred thousand yen?" Sonoko growled, glaring with all the rage in her body.

"Hey—for ransom money, that's nothing! And it depends. Probably we'd make you call your parents—I'm sure _they've_ got the money if your boyfriend hasn't. And we could probably raise it to five million then, which is a more reasonable amount for a ransom, wouldn't you say?"

"No! And how do you know my parents have that kind of money anyway?" Sonoko tried to snap, but it sounded feeble to her own ears. She was the daughter of a _zaibatsu_—she should have known that something like this was eventually bound to happen. Heck, they could look up her family and her family's income on the _internet_ if they wanted!

"Your attitude, your clothing, your purse, your make-up…everything about you pretty much screams 'wealthy parents'."

Sonoko glared as they began to walk again, forcing her to move as well.

She scarcely even noticed that when she had heard Makoto's voice through the receiver, it had amplified her fear to the extent that she had thrown everything to the wind and started shouting at her captors—something that, perhaps, the authors of her romance novels might have described as 'courage'.

hr 

"Sonoko-chan!"

Eri was beginning to feel increasingly nervous as she ran through the alleyways in search of her daughter's best friend. Nothing could have happened…could it? She had told the girl to stay hidden, but she knew how nerve-wracking it could be to stay still when one knew one was in grave danger. Had she moved and been found?

"Sonoko-chan? Sonoko-chan! Sono…"

Eri's voice trailed off in disbelief when she saw an object lying on the ground—a cell phone. It was battered and scratched, and she knew at once that it had not been dropped by a simple accident.

Her heart was beating with a terrible foreboding as she picked it up and opened it. She knew at once that it was Sonoko's—on the screen was the name 'MAKOTO' in large letters, surrounded by hearts.

She was shocked to find tears brimming in her eyes as she stared at the cell phone's screen. She was even more shocked by the sorts of thoughts that swept through her mind: Sonoko had always been such a hopeless romantic, ever since she and Ran were little children. What kind of person was this Makoto man? Ran had told her in passing that he came running to Sonoko's side, regardless of what obligations he had in his own life, at the slightest whiff of danger. What would he do if he knew of the present situation? Had he been on Sonoko's mind as whatever had happened had happened?

Eri blinked the tears away and shook the thoughts from her head. She was very fond of Sonoko, but she could not afford to get sentimental at that particular moment. The thought _What happened to Ran?_ crossed her mind as well, but she shoved that out before she was struck by another wave of sentimentality as she was sure to be if she didn't stop thinking about it.

She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths to calm herself. When she opened them again, her eyes were calm and cool, and she was ready to investigate.

She was well aware that while her instincts simply screamed at her to find Ran, Sonoko came first. She had no leads to finding Ran but what Sonoko had told her, and Sonoko was in immediate danger. Ran had her karate to defend herself; Sonoko knew next to no self-defense.

First things first, the saying went, and right now, Sonoko came first.

hr 

"Ai-kun…" The Professor's voice was as hesitant as she had ever heard it. "Perhaps it's time we gave up."

They had driven past two vehicles, but neither had seemed likely to carry Conan. Now Professor Agasa judged that it was not far from dawn, and was beginning to feel that they ought to get back as soon as possible. Ai had refused all previous statements, but now the sky was a little lighter, she had a feeling that it would be foolish of her to keep up her protests any longer.

"Sure. Let's go back." Judging by the look that the Professor shot at her out of the corner of his eye, he knew how much it cost her to say that.

Ai felt her heart twist as the Professor began to turn the car around—a precarious operation on a road so thin. One wrong move, and they might end up stuck in mud…if they were lucky enough not to crash into a tree, of course.

But the constriction in Ai's chest—completely imperceptible from her expression, of course—was unrelated to that. Nor did it have to do with the thought of what could be happening to Conan.

It had only just struck her how much the Professor was doing for her.

Of course, she was unused to kind treatment in general, and it still bemused her to an extent when people seriously listened to whatever she had to say. She could ask questions without fear; she could ask people to do something for her, and they would do it with a smile and an offer to do more; she could voice an opinion, and it would be considered, debated, and appreciated. Her friends were protective of her—far more protective than was strictly necessary, in fact.

But the Professor… He was different. He had always been different. If something was bothering her, where her friends would press her to tell them what it was, he would remain silent and act as though he did not notice, because he knew that she felt better that way. If she was sick, he put aside all else to sit at her bedside and watch over her until she was better. When she asked for something or made a request, he complied—not delightfully with offers to do more if she needed as her friends did, but casually, without a second thought, as if this were only natural.

Ai could not remember having parents. To her, 'parents' were a fantasy, a thing that made everything all right and gave her a sense of security. But, of course, she had no parents in living memory, and that was what had created that feeling. She was a very logical person, and knew that in real life, parents were no doubt not very different from anything else—just something natural. Probably the most natural thing of all in the world, because parents were supposed to be there from birth—no, even _before_ one's birth, one had parents. They were supposed to be something that just _were_.

That was what the Professor was to her. He treated her like an intellectual equal, giving her unrestricted access to his lab, discussing matters with her when they puzzled him, taking her opinions into account, usually prioritizing them over his own… But when it came to her health and safety, he was suddenly gently commanding. He was never overprotective, and his ways never annoyed her. Even so, he was protective, carefully but subtly watching over her. He let her speak even when she had a cold, but at the first sign of strain, he told her that she should not be speaking. He let her read and converse when she had a fever, but if she tried to leave her bed, he kindly chastised her.

Now, though he looked perfectly healthy, on closer inspection there were dark circles beneath his eyes; his brow seemed more wrinkled than usual; it looked rather as though he were doing his best to keep from falling asleep at any moment. Yet, Ai knew, if she had insisted that they go on, he would have complied. He would push the limits of his body for her, showing as little strain as he could manage.

How was it that she had only just noticed now how much he was willing to do for her? How could she let him push himself like that, when she knew he was neither young, nor in perfect health condition? Mentally, Ai cursed her…_affectation_ (she refused to call it anything else, for it simply _could not_ be love) with Kudo-kun. He, obviously, was not around, and he was young and healthy and had a sharp mind—he could handle himself. The Professor was here with her, however, and was definitely not in an ideal health condition.

Ai glanced worriedly at the Professor again. He had managed to smooth his expression out somewhat, no doubt worried that she would see, but the strain was still there. For the first time since she had been turned small, she really, truly wished that she were an adult again. The Professor shouldn't have been driving like this—he should have been sleeping in the back seat while she drove. She hoped that the way home wouldn't be quite as long, since they hadn't come in a straight path at all.

It was, in fact, only half an hour before they were back in the city.

"We were that close?" Ai asked in surprise.

The Professor nodded. "You mentioned that the dot had slowed down—to walking speed—and then gone in no fixed direction. Like you said, that probably meant he'd gotten away; if he was captured again, there's nothing we could do, so I thought I'd try all the nearer areas in the hope that he was trying to come back."

"That makes sense," nodded Ai. She had let the Professor do the navigating without any questions, and had concentrated only on the shadows, and finding anything that might be signs of life, or of some person passing in the recent past.

They were not far into the city, however, when the Professor slowed. Ai sat up straight in her seat and looked at him curiously. He was staring out the window. Following his gaze, she saw a crowd of people gathering.

"Professor?" Ai called.

"Ai-kun, do you think we should see what's going on here?" Ai hesitated, then shrugged.

"Anything out of the ordinary's worth looking at in a situation like this."

So the Professor stopped the car on a side street and they hurried over to the crowd, which had moved a little down the street. As the Professor stepped up to them and questioned them as to the reason for this gathering, Ai noted that most of them were looking down the street at what appeared to be a teenaged girl. She was clinging to the sleeve of a passerby, and appeared to be begging something. The passerby, with a look some way between alarm and disgust, snatched her sleeve away from the girl and rushed off, lest the girl try to follow. The girl called after her, but when she did not turn back, turned instead to other passersby.

"It appears that that girl has been questioning about Kid and a teenage boy with shaggy hair around her own age," the Professor told her quietly upon her return. "That group has been watching for a while. They say that she appeared merely shaken at first, but as most will not answer her questions and those who do have no answers for her, she has grown increasingly shaken. Now they are beginning to wonder if they should call an ambulance or the police."

Ai was deep in thought for a moment.

"Kid… I think the news was saying that he disappeared during the heist last night…"

"Disappeared? Ai-kun, he's always disappearing."

"No, not like…in a puff of smoke. He went somewhere and didn't come out again, from what I remember."

The Professor was quiet for a moment. Then, "Every possibility's worth investigating, right?"

Ai smiled wryly.

And that was how she found herself standing awkwardly in the background as the Professor went up to the girl. He was much better at this sort of stuff than she was, she thought as she listened.

"Is something wrong?" The Professor's voice as he approached the girl was gentle; soothing.

"Wrong?" repeated the girl with wild eyes. "_Wrong!_ Kaito's gone and Kid's gone and it all happened at the same time and Kaito had the letters and they think he's Kid, that's what's wrong!"

Judging from his expression, the Professor either understood this statement—which Ai could make neither heads nor tails of, other then that she was worried about Kid and someone named Kaito—or was making no effort to understand it.

"You look exhausted," the Professor observed gently. "Maybe you should head home for some rest?"

"Home!" If the girl's eyes were wild before, that was nothing compared to what they were now. "He's not home! They say he was in the hotel, but he's gone and hurt and I just…"

Suddenly, the girl was taking quick, shallow gasps of breath as though she could no longer breathe properly. The Professor gently reached out to stroke her back as he murmured calming words, but the girl did not seem to mind. Not that a calming stranger would normally make hyperventilation any worse.

Gradually, the girl's breathing slowed, and she continued to take deep, calming breaths.

"Listen," the Professor said firmly. "You may not like to give up looking for him, but you've got to get some rest. How about just going home for a few hours to rest? You won't be able to find him if you collapse."

The girl shook her head violently, and Ai thought for a moment that she would plunge right back into hyperventilation. But, though her voice was a high squeak, she managed to keep her breathing at an un-harmful rate. "Too far."

"How about a hotel, then?"

Again she shook her head, but this time with less vehemence. "No money…"

"I could give you some…no? Very well, but I must insist that you rest. You see, being an inventor myself, I have a tendency to overwork myself at times; and I see colleagues who overwork themselves as well. I know the signs of mental and emotional exhaustion."

"But…"

"If you will not take any money from me, then that is up to you, but I cannot leave you here. Why not come to my home? I have a few extra bedrooms; I'm sure that your conscious will let you make use of one of them."

Ai was sure that it was just exhaustion that kept the girl from panicking at this. What was the Professor thinking? Any teen invited into a random old man's house would panic! But it seemed that the Professor knew exactly what he was doing, for she saw him gesturing her way.

"I'm afraid that I cannot be detained much longer, as my granddaughter is waiting for me. Why not come along with us? I will not detain you for too long. Just take a rest, and then be on your way. If I leave you in this state, my conscience will suffer."

The girl went suddenly limp. Ai stared, wondering what had happened; a minute later the Professor was helping her to her feet, and Ai saw that she was weak, as though she was half unconscious. The Professor assisted her to walk along towards the car—something that took hours, and made Ai wish that she were strong enough to help.

Once they had helped the girl lie down in the back seat, Ai could only hope that worry for the girl didn't keep the Professor from getting his own rest once they got back to his house.

_Author's Notes: Yes, I did some time traveling for this one. I said I'd drag in all sorts of other characters, didn't I? Obviously, some are still missing. There's just one more chapter like this planned—no, it won't be the next one—but can't guarantee that I won't be writing more like this later._

_And I just _had_ to bring Makoto and Sonoko, of course. Does anyone else feel that Sonoko and Makoto make a wonderful, beautiful couple that's severely underrated? If you ask me whether that's my favorite Detective Conan pairing, then no, it's not, actually (my favorite is actually Sayuri/Toshihiko; my second favorite is Mari/Tatsuya. I bet most of you won't even recognize the names), but it is _definitely _underrated._


	13. Perilous Morning

**Perilous Danger**

**Chapter 12: Perilous Morning**

Conan stared. A part of his mind was telling him that he ought to be leaping up and shouting in protest, regardless of the fact that it would wake his friends, and storming out of this place with his friends. Another part of his mind was insisting that she could not _possibly_ be serious, and this must be a joke of some kind. But the largest part of his mind knew that she knew much more than he about the situation and was perfectly serious, and rendered him incapable of doing anything more than staring wide-mouthed and wide-eyed, gaping.

When he finally managed to gather enough of himself together, the only thing he could say was, "You're crazy. I can't believe this. You're out of your mind. You're actually completely, entirely, sanitarium-worthily _insane!_"

The little old woman sent him a disapproving look. "Well, dear, what else would you call a person who goes by the name Little Old Woman Who Lives in the Sewers and Knows Everything and lives up to that name?"

"I knew you were insane, just not thi- Wait. Did you just say that that was your _name_? God, you're stark raving _mad_!"

"Oh? If my name makes a person stark raving mad, dear, I'm afraid that _you_ are the one who earns that title. You named me, after all."

"So you're just saying that's what your name because I call you that since I don't know what your actual name is?"

"Dear, that's the best name I've had in years. Last time I helped someone, it was a young man who chose to name me Ugly Old Hag. The lady before that called me Crazy Lady, and the child before that chose to name me Santa Claus, for some odd reason. And over the years I've been Easter Bunny, St. Patrick, Ghost Lady, Tooth Fairy, Archaeopterix, and a number of other imaginary creatures that I can assure you don't exist."

"So by calling you Little Old Woman Who Lives in the Sewers and Knows Everything, I accidentally temporarily named you that, you're saying?"

"Precisely. You _are_ rather quick on the uptake." The tone suggested that she meant precisely the opposite. Conan ignored that.

"Wait, didn't you just say that it was impossible for a human to know everything about anything? So how could you possibly live up to the name The Woman Who Knows Everything?"

"Now, now, sweetheart, calm down a moment. You named me, and that name is Little Old Woman Who Lives in the Sewers and Knows Everything. Let's try not to get it wrong, all right?"

"You're ignoring my question."

"And your question presumes that I am human."

Conan opened his mouth to ask what else she could possibly be before, by some miracle, a trickle of sanity ambled its way into his consciousness and pointed out that given everything that had happened thus far, it was best not to argue this point. In fact, that explanation almost made more sense than any "real" explanation ever could.

"Can't you just tell me what name you were born with?"

"No."

"Well, you're certainly helpful."

"Of course I am. What do you call the information I just gave you?"

"You call that 'information?' That was the nonsensical raving of a lunatic!"

"I thought we had already established that?"

"And the nonsensical ravings that you imparted to me were more _commands of action_ than _information_."

"Naturally, dear. Did you expect me to explain myself?" Conan opted not to answer that, because somehow, he had a vague feeling that it would be excruciatingly embarrassing to admit that yes, he _had_ expected some sort of explanation.

"And yet you expect me to do what you say?"

"Naturally, dear."

"Must you keep calling me 'dear'?"

"Naturally, my dear."

"Fine. Be that way."

"Thank you, dear. I will."

"I feel like I'm talking to another sassy seven-year-old."

"Why, thank you. I feel like I'm talking to a rock-headed seventy-year-old."

"I don't care. I'm not doing what you say."

"In which case I assure you that the Organization will find her and rip her to shreds. Mentally, of course; and probably physically, too, once they're done with that."

"_What?_ But you said she's safe!"

"For now, at the house of he whom you refer to as 'The Professor,' as long as you do as I say, then yes. But you must realize that the Organization is perfectly aware that you and the other young lady are strongly affiliated with that man. He will be one of their primary targets once they decide to give up on you for now. Your and Kid's significant others are there at the moment. Surely you don't think that they would be ignored?"

"But…but Kuroba went to find her!"

"And he isn't going to find her where she is right now, is he? How could he know that she met The Professor?"

"Curse you," said Conan sullenly.

"You don't mean that, dear." The woman was as serene and unfazed as ever.

"Yes I do." Conan was feeling like he actually _was_ seven years old, and found that he didn't care very much.

"Come, now. You're just worked up that someone knows more than you do for once. That only goes to show that you're far too conceited, doesn't it? Some humility will do you good, dear."

Conan did not deign to reply to that statement. He turned the situation over in his mind once, and then again. Was there really no way out of this?

He sighed.

"Fine. I'll go with what you say, but only because you've always been right so far. Don't think that I won't use my own judgment if I get so much as a _whiff_ of betrayal from you."

The threat may as well have fallen on deaf ears, the way the woman waved a hand dismissively with a grin and said, "Good, good. Now, time to leave, dear."

"Yes, ma'am." Conan was more resigned than anything.

"That's what I like to hear. Off you go now!"

So it was that Conan was granted a time limit. His body, the woman claimed, would hold up for as long as the remainder of this night, and another day and night. Whatever needed doing in the near future had to be done before dawn tomorrow; whatever could wait, however, must wait, for he would do well to get some rest before he collapsed.

Not that the part about getting rest was really processed by Conan's brain as it worked overtime. The concept of 'rest' was, at the present moment, one that Conan's brain shied away from. The mere _thought_ of rest and the comfort that it would bring was one which Conan's brain could not endure at the moment—he would crash the moment his brain registered that rest was a concept that could actually be made reality just so long as it shut down.

The old woman sighed and rolled her eyes as Conan simply headed for the door as quickly as was possible without running; he would not do precisely as she had told him, and she knew it well. Boys like him always thought that they knew best, after all.

She could only hope that when he deviated from his instructions, he did so because of some crucial event that she had not foreseen, and not merely because he misread the course of an event.

Sometimes, she wished that she could explain how she knew what she knew: maybe, if they knew, people like Kudo Shinichi would be more willing to listen when she told them to do things.

Then again, maybe not; and even if they did, what if she misread something, or made any mistake of any sort? If people believed in her like she was some god of some sort, she would let them down without fail: this she knew, for all humans make mistakes, and she—regardless of what she would have the Kudo boy believe—was only human.

Sighing at the age-old dilemma, she settled down to sleep by the children's feet. May as well get sleep while she could, she figured.

VVVVVVVVVV

The first thing that Conan had to do, according to the Little Old Lady Who Lives in the Sewers and Knows Everything, was to find Kuroba. This task would have proven alarmingly difficult if the instructions had come from anyone else, seeing as how Conan did not have the slightest idea as to the location of the notorious thief.

This particular woman, however, was another matter, for she never gave him orders without instructing him as to how to carry them out. Granted, some of those instructions seemed strangely impossible to actually carry out, but it was the thought that counted, he supposed. In fact, the Little Old Lady Who Lives in the Sewers and Knows Everything never tired of giving instructions, it seemed. If anything, it was the _reason_ behind some of those instructions that she failed to explain. Simply dragging him into the sewers, for instance, would have been far less traumatizing had she explained that she had a home in there.

Then again, Conan realized, he probably would have run away in fear of the woman's shaky, almost non-existent grip on sanity if she had said that. Maybe she _did_ know everything after all.

Sighing, Conan tried to banish these pondering thoughts from his exhausted mind. The woman had warned him time and again against wasting energy, and while he wasn't overly sure of the amount of faith he could place in her or the extent to which he was willing to blindly follow her instructions, he was certain that her warnings were _not_ to be ignored—ever, under any circumstances whatsoever.

So it was that Conan sighed and reviewed the instructions he had received for the finding of Kid the Phantom Thief. Climb to the top of the Bandai office at Taitou, she had ordered, and wait there until he saw Kid's glider, at which point he was to wave a flashlight.

Now, these instructions were fairly straightforward until one took into account two facts: one, that it was two o'clock in the morning, and two, that Bandai was the third largest toy-making company in the world, and he probably wouldn't be allowed on to the roof of the _main office_—the only Bandai office there was in Taitou—even if there _was_ anyone there and it _was _in daylight hours.

So he had, quite sensibly in his opinion, inquired as to how she expected him to get to the roof of the main office of the world's third largest toy maker in the world at two o'clock in the morning, to which she had simply cackled that he'd best stop by the stationward side of Sun Road at Kichijouji. Oh, and just in case he was too tired to notice why she'd sent him there, he'd best poke around by the shoe store that would be on his left as he walked away from the station.

To say that Conan was annoyed would have been a gross understatement. Conan was a detective, but more than that, he was an intellectual. It bothered him when he tried to do things without understanding _why_ he was doing them—sure, it was one thing if his subconscious suggested he do something; it was quite another when a woman he hadn't even ever seen, heard of, or known to _exist_ only yesterday was giving him orders without explaining why he was to follow those orders.

Trying to puzzle out the reason why he was headed for Sun Road just gave him a headache, so he sighed and gave up. Naturally, there were no trains at two in the morning; that was why he was currently walking along the sewers…again. He'd have to start seriously considering the sewers as Tokyo's most efficient transportation system once all of this had ended.

If, that is, he was still alive when it ended.

He shook the gloomy thought from his mind: now was not the time for pessimism. If there was anything he was certain of, it was that an optimistic, brain-dead, sleep-deprived, starved child's body functioning only on adrenalin was definitely much more likely to survive than a pessimistic, brain-dead, sleep-deprived, starved child's body functioning only on adrenalin.

Conan tried to think happy thoughts as he followed the old lady's instructions to reach Sun Road. He thought of Ran, but that brought his thoughts to the issue of what he would have to do to save her, according to the old woman, and nothing could possibly be more depressing at that moment to his overused brain. He thought of Ayumi, Genta and Mitsuhiko, but that only made him wonder if they were safe in the care of the lady. He wondered about Haibara and the Professor, but he had no idea as to their wellbeing, so that made the wondering more prone to anxiety.

Was there anyone at all that he could think of without sinking into melancholy? His parents were a worrisome pair: if they called Ran's place and heard things were amiss, they would come flying over at once to drag Conan back with him, only to leap into the heart of the danger themselves. No one in the police force was safe anymore, especially after how he had seen Shiratori talking with the pair that had tried to kidnap him.

There were all of three individuals that Conan was fairly certain were safe: Hattori Heiji, Toyama Kazuha, and Suzuki Sonoko. Hattori couldn't possibly get in any trouble unless he had caught a whiff of danger from that atrociously timed phone call of his; the problem was that if Hattori got himself involved, then Kazuha would never be safe from the line of flame. Hattori may be unaware of his feelings for Kazuha to the point that it was comical, but it was certainly obvious to anyone watching that he was in love with the girl.

Sonoko and Kazuha were probably as safe as Conan's parents. The only danger that Conan could foresee for them was through association, so they might, in all probability, get off safest of all.

Conan heaved a sigh. Why him? Why Ran? What had she done to deserve any of this? _Why?_

VVVVVVVVVV

Contrary to Conan's bold assumption, of course, Sonoko was not half as safe as he thought her to be.

As it happened, it had proved impossible for Makoto to make it to Tokyo by eleven that night. Upon rushing to the L.A. international airport, he found, to his utter horror, that there were only two flights that went directly to Japan and reached before eleven that evening; both of them were overbooked.

Following a large amount of yelling and arm-waving, the person behind the desk seemed to understand that it was urgent and some relation of his was in trouble, so the kindly young lady booked him to Tokyo Narita through Singapore.

As it happened, his flight was to reach Narita at 9:05 PM: he would have barely enough time to get to the Ginza for Sonoko.

Unfortunately for him, the world was not on his side: in Singapore, his connecting flight to Tokyo was canceled, and the flight he was rebooked on departed twelve hours later.

This time, no amount of shouting or complaining would remedy the problem, for that was the earliest flight to Tokyo in which any seats were available.

The airline had booked him in a hotel and everything, so he was certainly comfortable for the agonizing twelve hours' wait. Mostly, he did nothing but pace up and down along his room, staring at his cell phone and wondering if he should call.

In the end, he had no choice but to try calling, for he would not be able to make the promised time, no matter how he struggled.

It was only out of habit that he flipped open his cell phone and scrolled down his address book for Sonoko's number: being in Singapore, he could not use his American phone service, and as he picked up the hotel phone, dialed 9 for an international call, and dialed the country code and cell phone number, he was dialing by memory, his eyes not really even seeing the number on his cell phone screen.

To his surprise, it was a woman—a very worried-sounding woman, at that—who answered this time. Why did Sonoko's cell phone never stay in the same hands for very long? he wondered vaguely.

"May I enquire as to whom I am speaking to?" Makoto asked politely, figuring that it was safer to assume nothing.

"I could ask the same," replied a weary voice on the other line. "But I find it safe to assume that you're Kyogoku Makoto-san—am I right?"

"Yes…" Makoto replied hesitantly.

"I'm Kisaki Eri," replied the woman before he could ask again. "Sonoko-chan's friend Mouri Ran's mother—I found Sonoko-chan's cell phone lying on the ground when I was looking for her."

"Ah." He spent a moment wondering whether or not he ought to take her at her word.

"I know that you first saw Sonoko-chan at one of Ran's karate events;" the woman who claimed to be Mouri-san's mother said as if she had read his mind, "you actually met Sonoko-chan when she and Ran came to stay at the inn that your family runs. There Sonoko-chan got picked up by a seemingly nice man, but it turned out that he had a vengeance against all brown-haired girls, and wanted to kill Sonoko-chan. You saved her, and the two of you have been a couple ever since."

"I see—thank you," said Makoto awkwardly. Then he remembered why he had called, but Kisaki-san got there first.

"I take it from the tone of your voice that you already know that Sonoko-chan is in danger?"

"Yes—I spoke with her kidnappers when it was early morning there."

Eri nodded to herself. She had looked at the call history, and seeing a call from Kyogoku Makoto not ten minutes after the Sonoko's call to her, had thought that maybe this Kyogoku-san knew something that she did not, that could help her to find Sonoko-chan. She had been wandering around the neighborhood in vain for hours now. She had tried calling Kyogoku-san, but either his cell phone was turned off or out of range—he could not reach it.

"They want five hundred thousand yen delivered for Sonoko-san behind the Ginza tonight. I'm stranded in Singapore until tomorrow."

But that evening, around 6, she received a tentative phone call on Sonoko's cell phone from the girl's captors; after confirming that she knew about the kidnapping and the ransom they were requesting, the man on the other end let her know that the there was a change in the transaction: she was to arrive at the Ginza as soon as possible, bringing only Sonoko's cell phone. They would give her a token to show her that Sonoko was fine if she came, and the transaction with the money was postponed for the next day; if she didn't come with the cell phone, Sonoko would be hurt.

Perhaps it was her anxiety about Ran and Sonoko-chan combined; she obediently did as she was told. It was only after the transaction had occurred and she was driving back with the token letter from Sonoko-chan that assured that she was well, but nothing more, that she realized that something was seriously wrong.

That one thought was like the ray of light that clicked her mind into place. The usual gears of her mind began to turn, and only then did she realize that they had been frozen stiff before. How could she, a lawyer renowned for her calmness, fall apart at the mere disappearance of her daughter and abduction of said daughter's best friend?

She parked at the side of the road and pulled out her cell phone. Quickly dialing Sonoko's cell phone number from the received call history, she demanded to know, when a man answered, if they still actually _had_ possession of Sonoko.

"What?" demanded the man incredulously.

She was certain now. "Where is she?" she demanded to know.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh yes you do—you wouldn't have changed the transaction date otherwise. And what do you need her cell phone for if you have her with you?"

"…I don't know where she went, okay? Now just leave us alone!" The line went dead.

Thoughtfully, Eri considered the situation. Kyogoku-san would be a problem—how would she let him know of this new development, when she hadn't even had the presence of mind to take down his phone number before she had handed over Sonoko-chan's cell phone? _Why_ had she conceded to those demands anyway? The motives behind the men's actions were appallingly clear.

Eri held back a sigh. She would just have to make sure that she didn't fall apart again, then.

Meanwhile, as it happened, Makoto had made a call to Sonoko's cell phone just to check in on the situation.

"Hello?"

"Oh, good, it's you," replied an unpleasantly familiar voice. "Hey, it's him!" Apparently, he was talking to a friend in the background. The phone changed hands.

"Hey, you're the rich girl's boyfriend?" asked a new man's voice.

"Yes," Makoto replied, trying to pretend he wasn't horrified to know that Sonoko-san was being held by _two or more_ men. And how had the phone gotten back into their hands anyway? It was unnatural.

"Right. Well, we've changed the plan. We'll meet you tomorrow night, and we want three times as much."

"No," Makoto said flatly.

"_What?_" hissed the man. "We've got your _girlfriend_ here, boy—we're at our leisure to do what we want. We could beat her, gang rape her, torture her, murder her and hide the body…anything we want, and you can't do a thing. So you'd better come up with that money."

Makoto let none of his fury or fear leak into his voice. "You told me to bring five hundred thousand tonight; now you suddenly want to change plans. I suggest you make up your mind—I'll meet you tomorrow night, but if you don't bring my girlfriend or change the plans one more time, I'm calling the police."

"Fine—you'll have your girlfriend. But you'd better have the money! Same place, same time tomorrow—and no tricks, you're coming alone!" And the line went dead.

They certainly didn't seem very organized, Makoto reflected. They probably hadn't even planned on abducting anyone: just saw Sonoko-san and thought she'd make good ransom material.

Makoto paced up and down the room, no longer hiding the extent to which he was seething. To his own horror, he found himself on the verge of pinning some of the blame for this situation on Sonoko-san as well, for her cavalier attitude towards life. Appalled at himself, he shook off the thought and focused on the task at hand.

He didn't have enough money for a single meal, let alone five hundred thousand or fifteen hundred thousand yen. But that wasn't much of an issue at the moment, in his opinion. He didn't really intend to give them any money anyway. There was something wrong and disgusting about giving people money _for kidnapping Sonoko-san_.

They might ask to see the money before they gave him Sonoko-san; no matter, he would just borrow some amount from Kisaki-san, and hand it over in exchange for Sonoko-san. Once he had Sonoko-san, everything would be fine. He could probably get the money back and the abductors in jail, too.

But then he turned the situation over a few times in his head, and was struck by the strangeness of it all. Something wasn't adding up—something wasn't right…

Then it hit him, and he dove for the hotel phone once more to dial Sonoko-san's number.

"Who's this?" asked the male voice that answered Sonoko-san's phone.

"The girl's boyfriend," Makoto said shortly, recognizing the voice as the second man he had spoken with earlier.

"I thought I already told you what to do," the man replied, sounding distinctly annoyed.

"Let me talk to her."

"Why?"

"To assure me that you actually have her, and I'm not wasting my time with this transaction."

Silence greeted him at that, and he knew that his intuition had been right.

"You lost her, didn't you?" Makoto said sharply. He was careful to make it a statement—not a question. "And so you changed the plans, hoping you'd find her before the situation got any worse."

He could have just hung up, but he wanted some sort of confirmation to his suspicions before he jumped to conclusions and acted on them, only to discover that he had been wrong all along.

The silent response could have meant anything—shock at such an absurd suggestion, shock that he had figured it out and no idea how to respond—but the frantic whispers that the men failed to conceal from him entirely were his answer.

Makoto moved to hang up then—until it occurred to him that he had no earthly idea where Sonoko-san had gone, and they might have a better idea than he did. At the very least, if he knew what they did, he ought to be able to find her before they took her back as their hostage again.

"Ugh!" exclaimed the man, apparently at his wits' end. "Yes! You're right! You and the lady both! And we have no clue where she is, so you can stop calling now!"

The line went dead. When Makoto attempted to call back, the line was busy. Puzzled, he tried one more time—and it went through.

"_WHAT?!_"

"And?" Makoto snapped impatiently—anyone could find Sonoko-san on the streets after all. "When did you lose her?"

There were mutters, whispers, and the sounds of a frantic scramble. The next voice that addressed him was female, and sounded deeply apologetic.

"I'm _so_ sorry. These two have no idea what they're doing at all, and the whole kidnapping thing was really stupid of them."

"I don't really care," Makoto said, his tone polite so as to soften the rudeness of his words. "I just want to find my girlfriend."

"Ah," the woman sounded ashamed. "Of course. They say they lost her around five this evening by the Ginza; they don't know anything else, I'm afraid…"

"That's plenty."

He hung up, grabbed his bags, and made for the airport.

One thing that had deeply concerned Eri through the entire commotion that followed her giving up of Sonoko-chan's phone was that now she and Kyogoku-san would be entirely unable to contact one another. She, of course, had no idea what his number was or where he lived, and he would have no way of knowing either her phone number or address. She wondered if he would end up just searching for Sonoko-chan on his own, without ever seeking her help. He seemed like the type that might try that.

Surprisingly, Kyogoku-san turned up at her office at ten the next morning. To her shocked inquiries as to how he had found her office, he sheepishly mumbled something or another. Eri registered that this was simply a case of very-much-devoted-to-his-girlfriend—he had picked up, from little snippits of conversation that any other person would have deemed inconsequential, that Sonoko-san's best friend's mother was Kisaki Eri, and from the conversations about what she had done for the day that they had every so often ("Today we went to see Ran's mom—just another of Ran's plans to get her parents back together—but on the way we stopped by this _adorable_ little store…"), he had pinned down the location of her office by finding three or four shops that Sonoko-san had mentioned visiting on the way to Kisaki-san's office.

This gave Eri a _wonderful_ first impression of Kyogoku Makoto, to say the very least. Any man who could pay that close attention to his significant other was a worthwhile catch. They didn't come around that often either. Had _Kogoro_ ever bothered to try listening to her at all, let alone dote on her every word? She would have to make sure that Sonoko-chan knew how lucky she was to have a man like Kyogoku-san so devoted to her. But first, now that they were face-to-face, best introduce herself formally…

There followed five minutes of polite introductions and awkward conversation about the weather. Eri, finally realizing that she was probably the closest thing to Sonoko's family that Kyogoku-san had ever met and that he was probably suffering the common meeting-the-parents anxiety, broke the ice.

"So, what shall we do about Sonoko-chan?"

Kyogoku-san looked at her as though she had just asked him if he knew how to throw a punch. "We look for her, of course."

VVVVVVVVVV

All through Makoto's and Eri's dilemma, elsewhere in Tokyo, Conan and Kaito suffered a dilemma of their own.

It had taken Conan most of the time before sunrise to reach the Bandai office after he found his suspenders casually discarded at Sun Road. The suspenders, of course, made the climbing issue significantly easier, though the smooth sides of the building did prove challenging. Conan stretched his suspenders to the limit, and after numerous attempts that were closely followed by failures, managed to do the impossible: he would stretch the suspenders just a little, swing them over his head, and toss them high, at the same time pressing the button that extended them, to catch onto the light-up sign that was level with the topmost floor.

He hadn't even known that his suspenders were capable of extending to a length that encompassed over ten floors—and with good reason, he discovered after he had pushed the button to shrink the suspenders and thereby pull himself up to the top of the sign, from which he clambered onto the roof.

The suspenders had not, fortunately, snapped. But when Conan attempted to stretch them out to reach the higher level of the roof, he discovered that once they stretched, they would shrink no more: that one stunt had effectively killed the suspenders. Heaving a sigh, Conan settled down to await the arrival of Kuroba.

Conan had been anticipating that either his wait would be alarmingly long, or he would have taken so long in reaching the place that he would have missed Kuroba altogether.

He felt a mild sense of terror at the little old lady, therefore, when Kuroba came flying not five minutes after he had settled down to wait.

"Kuroba!"

Kid looked down, and to Conan's surprise, looked less than surprised to see him. With an unsteady little jiggle, Kuroba landed (relatively) smoothly on the higher level of the roof.

"Kudo," he registered warily. "Should I ask what you're doing on the roof of the world's third largest toy maker's main office—which, I might add, _isn't even open yet?_"

"I busted these to get up here," said Conan, pointing dismissively at the pathetically discarded suspenders that had lost their elasticity, and with that, their usefulness.

"Apparently," noted Kuroba wryly. "That doesn't tell me what you're doing up here though."

"Waiting for you."

"For me?" A pause. "My, I'm flattered. I presume that I can thank the Little Old Lady Who Lives in the Sewers and Knows Everything for informing you that I would be coming here?"

"Yeah." Suddenly, Conan found himself fighting a certain foreboding. "How'd you know that?"

"Because she's the one who sent me here. Told me to fly around the building a few times till I saw you. I have to say it puzzled me, trying to figure out what you'd be doing on the roof of a building like this, but I'm ashamed to say that I shrugged it off on the assumption that it had something to do with that befuddled brain of yours."

There was a pause as Conan registered what Kaito had just said. "So _she_ decided to make us meet on top of a highly secure building?"

"Apparently. Has a sense of humor, doesn't she?"

"But I thought you were looking for that girl. …She told you Aoko-san's in danger, did she?"

"Yeah. Safe for now with that Ran-san of yours."

"Right. And we've got to team up to carry out some crazy plan of hers…"

"Which, by the way, I'm supposed to ask you about because she didn't have the time to tell me."

"I refuse to repeat the half-insane half-senile ramblings of a crazy lady who lives in the sewers."

"Well then, you're dooming Aoko and Ran-san, aren't you? I hope you don't think I'll ever forgive you."

"Right. Can we get going now?"

"Your only means of getting down here is broken; if you want me to take you with me on your glider, I suggest you tell me what she told you."

"I don't really want to just now."

Kaito would have pressed on, but Kudo had obviously not gotten any rest, so he just sighed. "I'm not letting up on this."

"Fine."

And that was that. Eventually, because Kuroba was really their only method of transportation, seeing as how he had no money with him for the trains anyway, Conan found that he _had_ to repeat the lady's instructions if they were going to get to the places where they needed to go, and Kaito found that he wished that Conan had withheld that information for at least a little longer.

"Are you _serious?_"

"Unfortunately."

"Is she?"

"What?"

"Serious."

"Unfortunately."

"Please be kidding."

"Do you think _I'm_ happy with this?"

"Nah, not really. Still, I'll bet you did your fair share of complaining when she told you." Silence. Kaito took that as an affirmative. "So let me have my chance to complain too."

No response.

"Unfortunately for me, fortunately for you, I'm done complaining. Anyway…so, what did you say we had to do next?"

"Find, and I quote, "The Woman" because without her our lives are and will forever remain hopeless until the moment of our deaths, which won't be that long in coming."

"And you have no clue who the woman is?"

"Not at all."

"But the instructions are a little more detailed than what you just said, I presume?"

"Still very vague."

"Try me anyway. Need I remind you, _yet again_-"

"That you're the saner of the pair of us, yeah, yeah, I know. You've pointed it out often enough; feel free to stop now."

"Not till you register the fact that I _am_ the saner of the pair of us. I'm afraid that that muddled brain of yours gives me the right to point out what I feel I need to point out when I feel I need to point it out. So just tell me what it is we're doing next."

Conan was silent for a few moments, glaring at Kuroba, but eventually decided that if one of them was going to be immature, it wouldn't be him. So he sighed, swallowed his pride, and spoke. "We're going back to the place where we were kept hostage."

"I see. …And do you remember where that was?"

"Nope."

"I presume you don't know why we're going there either."

"Not in the least."

"Great! Off we go, then!" And they flew off into the sky.

_This is really melodramatic,_ Conan thought wryly. _I wish I'd paid attention while I had the chance. And hadn't gotten caught or shrunk like this…_

But, like all the other times he had wished it so, time stubbornly refused to turn itself back a year and fix his mistake for him.

VVVVVVVVVV

Ran woke up that morning with a splitting headache. Opening her eyes to a room that was blurry with sleep, she tried to remember why her head hurt so badly when she didn't feel sick, and why the room she was in didn't appear to be her own.

Sitting up, she remembered everything at once: how Conan had run away, that Conan was Shinichi, how Jodie-sensei was _working_ for the FBI, that she could contact neither her parents nor Sonoko nor Shinichi, and that she had spent the better part of the night sobbing into her pillow for Sonoko's disappearance.

There was an empty futonon the floor that looked like its occupant had only just gotten up. Ran felt her insides clench with guilt: she had been so racked with guilt about Sonoko the previous night that she hadn't had the presence of mind to protest, let alone notice when Aoko led her to the bed and took the floor.

That made two breakdowns in one day, Ran registered wryly as she made up the bed she had been sleeping in, and the proceeded to fold up the futon on the floor and put it away in the closet where she knew it belonged. She was honestly breaking down far too often as of late—how was she ever going to help anyone if she kept falling apart every time the situation got a little worse?

But there was a weariness, deep and heavy, that had fallen like a stone into the bottom of her chest and refused to move from there. She thought her body might fail her at any moment and crumple to the ground in the useless lump that she already was on the inside.

"Ran-chan, you really didn't need to do that," said Aoko kindly as she reentered the room to find Ran just finishing putting away her futon.

"I know, but I thought I might do it for you anyway—as an apology for forcing you to sleep on the floor yesterday."

Aoko shook her head and looked rather ashamed. "Not at all. I only wish I could do more—I can only imagine what you must be going through."

Ran felt a surge of annoyance. It sprang from the sudden urge to cry, brought on by the memory of her alone-ness and the danger that loomed over everyone she held dear—things which she would not have recalled had they gone unmentioned. But it was more than that. Everyone—_everyone_—was in danger, and she was helpless to do a thing to help anyone, and that was the true source of her annoyance. She wished that she had more strength—or something like that—and that gave rise to a cyclone of frustration and anger for which she really had no outlet. The cyclone was now threatening to throw itself at Aoko with abandon, and Ran was determined that that should not happen; so she politely, if hastily and slightly curtly, excused herself to practically run to the bathroom, where she started a bath and placed her head under a rush of cold water in the hope that it would cool her irrational temper.

At karate classes, a topic sometimes addressed was the control of one's temper. Individuals as proficient as Ran in the art had the potential to be seriously dangerous when angry, so they had been given advice on how to control their tempers. Ran had, of course, duly participated in these exercises, but they never held very strongly in her memory: she used karate in her daily life, sure, but it was generally when someone was in danger. She sometimes used it to threaten her father, Shinichi, or Conan-kun into doing her bidding, but she never seriously intended to hurt them badly, and she had complete control of her limbs. In other words, she had never experienced such a temper that she wanted to harm some defenseless individual—much less for no reason under said individual's control.

Ran remembered something about meditation: breathing deeply, concentrating on the sounds in one's body and allowing oneself to be soothed by these sounds. She tried that for a time, sitting beside the tub in the bathroom in the hope that she could calm herself.

It didn't work.

Throwing a hopeless glance at the tub after a stubborn effort to try and calm herself that ended in failure anyway, Ran dunked her head into the mostly full tub and screamed.

Oddly enough, when she pulled her head out of the water, feeling lightheaded, dizzy, and rather weak, the anger and frustration had dissolved into a bone-deep weariness. So Ran sighed and turned off the water and left the bathroom to remove her clothing in the changing room. Even once she was back in the bathroom and carefully washing her hair, she found her eyes drooping again as if she had not just practically overslept.

Indeed, she was feeling as if she hadn't slept in a week. Rinsing off the soap and shampoo, Ran stepped into the tub. Sinking so that everything but her eyes, ears and nose were beneath the water, she was forced to admit that she was done—there was, she felt, nothing more that she could do.

Her mother had vanished to who-knew-where after receiving a mysterious phone call; her father had left the office in an apparent hurry; Sonoko had apparently been abducted, or had her phone stolen or something, but whatever had happened, no one knew where she was now; Conan-kun, or Shinichi, was in terrible danger, and she had nothing—not the _slightest_ clue—as to where any of these missing persons might possibly have gone. It was not merely disheartening: it was _depressing_, and it made Ran wonder exactly how she had managed to come as far as she had. Why hadn't she collapsed and given herself over to the FBI when she'd had the chance? At least she would—probably—have been able to see and talk with Shinichi then. Shinichi was smart, too: he could have found a way for the two of them to get away. What _had _it been that had pushed her to try so hard? she wondered.

Thoughtfully, Ran remembered many a vacation in search of good men with Sonoko; countless devious plots that attempted to get her parents back together; infinite days and nights spent running, joking, playing, and bickering with Shinichi as they skirted around the delicate thing that was their unspoken love for each other.

For Ran knew, now, that Shinichi loved her as she loved him. Everything that Conan or Shinichi had done for her in this past year suddenly clicked into place with that explanation, and she realized that he had tried, really and truly, to be there for her at the same time as he protected her from the inevitable death that she would suffer should anyone realize that she was in on the secrets of this 'organization.'

But obviously his protection had not worked—she was wanted nearly as much as he was now, and there wasn't a thing he or she could do to remedy the situation. And she wasn't sure whether she ought to be furious or grateful. She settled for a sort of mixture of both.

What about Sonoko? Naturally, Ran had had no idea that Shinichi had been using her as well as Ran's own _father_ to disguise himself; hadn't it occured to the moron that the individuals who suddenly developed some sort of mysteriously genius subconscious, they would fall under suspicion? Hadn't it _ever _occurred to the retard that she would rather he protect her father and best friend than her?

Ran leaned back in the now-cooling water, and wondered if she would end up beating Shinichi to a pulp next time she saw him.

She figured that she would take a nap, and try to regain some of her sanity before she did anything further. After all, it wouldn't do to storm out into danger in a tired, muddled, emotional state at all.

Before she knew it, Ran was fast asleep in the tub.

_Author's Note: Yet again, my apologies for the long wait. Thank you so much for putting up with me and these little snags..._

_Just one or two more chapters to go before we hit the prologue; after that, the _real_ action begins!_


End file.
